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Interface types and uses

Updated

This article explains the different interface types and how to use them on your Smoothwall On-Premise Appliance. For how to set them up, see Add new interfaces to Smoothwall Appliance.

  • An interface is where two things interact, such as web traffic and the Smoothwall Appliance.
  • A Port is a physical interface that is a real-world connection point, such as where you attach a LAN cable.

Interface types

VLAN

Routes traffic between virtual LANs.

Bridge

Combines two or more physical Network Interfaces into a single logical interface. You use a bridge to connect multiple collision domains.

PPPoE

Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) interfaces connect network zones that use modems or similar devices.

Bonding

Joins two or more physical interfaces to act as one logical interface. For example, if your Appliance has four ports, you can bond three ports into one interface with three times the original bandwidth.

The Smoothwall Appliance supports the following bonding modes:

  • Active backup: One interface is active at a time. If that interface fails, a backup takes over.
    • Used for high-availability where reliability is more critical than bandwidth.
    • Does not require switch support.
  • Round Robin: Packets are sent sequentially across all bonded network interfaces to increase throughput and load distribution.
    • Does not provide fault tolerance effectively due to packet reordering.
    • Requires both server and switch to support this mode.
  • Balance XOR: Distributes traffic across interfaces using a hashing algorithm based on the source and destination MAC addresses.
    • May not evenly distribute traffic.
    • Does not require switch support.
  • Broadcast: Sends all traffic on all network interfaces simultaneously.
    • Used for high availability scenarios, such as clustering or redundancy.
    • Duplicates traffic, which increases network load and reduces efficiency.
  • Dynamic Link Aggregation (802.3ad): Uses the LACP protocol to dynamically aggregate multiple interfaces into one link.
    • Load balancing, increased bandwidth and fault tolerance.
    • Used for high-throughput and redundancy, such as in data centres.
    • Requires switch support for LACP.
  • Adaptive Transmit Load Balancing: Dynamically load balances outgoing traffic based on each interface's current load. The receiving traffic is handled by a single active interface.
    • Only balances outgoing traffic, not incoming.
    • Does not require switch support.
  • Adaptive Load Balancing: Load balances both incoming and outgoing traffic.
    • Used in setups where the switch does not support LACP.
    • Does not require switch support.

Interface uses

External

External interfaces connect your network to the Internet. You can use this option for Bonding, VLAN and Bridge Interface Types.

Basic interface

Typically, basic interfaces deal with internal network traffic. You can use this option for Bonding, VLAN and Bridge Interface Types.

Bridge member

A bridge member is one of two or more network interface cards (NICs) that connect separate network zones. A Bridge interface connects these NICs. You can use this option for Bonding and VLAN Interface Types when a Bridge interface already exists.