8211 router and additional ethernets

[markpoulson]

I have an 2811 router and thought the 4-port HWIC cards would be routable. It appears they have to go through one of the built-in interfaces, which isn't going to do what I want. It looks like a NM-16ESW card will provide a third routing path, is that true?

Is there a way to get 4 routable ethernet pathways with this router? How about two gigabit HWIC cards (HWIC-1GE-SFP)?

[Adam Frederick]

If you just need 4 paths, you could use the NM-4ESW card and assign each port to a different VLAN & use SVI's for each VLAN. Of course if each port will be occupied this will not leave any room for growth so a 16 port etherswitch module may be best.

[markpoulson]

I don't see the NM-4ESW card listed on the site anymore, is it still made? Is that card different from the NM-16ESW in that it has 4 actual interfaces in IOS as oposed to the one on the 16 port version?

What I really want is 4 ethernet interfaces that show up as e0/0 e0/1 e0/2 and e0/3. What I have now only has the first two and the HWIC cards add .0 to .3 on the first two interfaces (not what I wanted...). Adding a NM-16ESW card will get me to e0/2 with a bunch more ports associated with that interface. Is there a way to get to e0/3 without using VLANs? I can't use VLANs for security reasons (switches must be on physically separate interfaces).

[tdrais]

They dropped support for the nm-4e card. I think you will end up with "vlans" no matter what you do.

This is not really a security issue if you configure it correctly. At least no more than a normal port is since you could bridge those if you choose.

Your best bet if you only need a few ports is to use the 4 port HWIC card. You can assign each physical port to a different vlan and force then to access ports. This means that no tagging is sent on the ports and there is no bridging between the ports.

To make them usable you would then define a vlan interface for each vlan. Since you have defined only one port to each vlan the vlan interface will only be used by that port. It in effect is the same as a routed port the definition is just done in a different location.

Not sure what you statement on .0 and .3 means. There is no relationship between the HWIC ports and the built in ports. You can if you work at it bridge them together or run trunks that bridge them but by default no traffic will pass.