Home Networking

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A community to help people learn, install, set up or troubleshoot their home network equipment and solutions.

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do i actually need a router? (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by Objective_Reference@alien.top to c/homenetworking@selfhosted.forum

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I'm unclear on the purpose of a router. Could I just have a cable modem directly connected to a (smart managed) switch that feeds all the clients?

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[–] BradleySummerlin@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago

It depends on your cable modem. If it has routing capabilities (can provide internal IP addresses and can pass data… or route it… between the single external IP and those internal IP addresses of the devices on your home network) then technically you have a router and don’t need an additional device.

Look for options in your cable mode like “DHCP server” and “firewall” to indicate it has routing functionality.