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[Audacity]

Hello D-Linkers,

I've been using a DGL-4500 for quiet a while now and I'm happy with it.  In addition to the DGL-4500 router, I have a D-Link switch (DGS-1008D) which all the rooms that are wired with Ethernet in my house connect to.

Anyway, I've recently ordered some Sonos gear (3 zones), and in order for that gear to work properly if all the zones are plugged into a wired network, your network switches need to support the Spanning Tree Protocol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanning_tree_protocol), and I was curious if either the DGL-4500 or the DGS-1008D support that.

Thanks.

[FurryNutz]

Wow, how interesting. I would contact one of the moderators about this Spanning tree support. Being that Some of these routers are made for simple home user network, not sure if what your asking would be supported by these devices. Never know though. Let us know what they say. Would be interesting to find out.

[Fatman]

If you need real STP then no unmanaged switch (which is what that switch and the switch in every home router I have ever seen is) is going to do what you need.  If you just need the switch to forward BPDUs successfully then you may have better luck.  that said I am not sure exactly what this system needs, or even if the switch in our unit will forward BPDUs as it is a home class product and STP/BPDUs are a business class feature.

[Audacity]

Thanks for the replies.

So, the Sonos stuff is a series of network music players.  Technically you only need to plug in one of their "Zone Players" into your network (via ethernet) and then the rest of your Zone Players will connect to it via a wireless network that is based on 802.11n, but is slightly proprietary (adds some Sonos specific "grid" features, and prevents standard computers from connecting to it).

I don't have my Sonos gear yet, but when I do I'll see what happens with my D-Link gear if plug more than one Zone Player into the switch.  According to this thread on the Sonos forums, only BPDU forwarding is required.

Anyway, this may be all academic since the Sonos wireless network may be artifact free in my home, so I won't need to plug more than one Zone Player into my home network.  I was just hoping that I could plug in multiple Sonos devices and get them to all work off the wired network, since wireless is generally less reliable.

[Fatman]

There is a certain chance that you will be able to simply connect them all and be up and running, I just can't say as I haven't used their equipment and the feature they want is fairly unheard of in a home environment.

[Audacity]

I got my Sonos gear last weekend, setup everything (wired connections) and it all worked.  I just thought I'd post a follow up if anyone is wondering about this in the future.

[FurryNutz]

Good to hear you got it all going. Any details that people should know about or was it a easy and seamless set up?

[Chris Lynch]

Spanning Tree would only be necessary if you accidently plugged in two or more of the Sonos devices on the same network.  This creates a loop, which frames will be forwarded infinitely, bringing down the network.  Spanning Tree would not be available on an unmanaged switch (i.e. the DGL-4500), as you would need to configure Spanning Tree with specific parameters for your network.  Also, Spanning Tree would not exist in consumer-based products.  Only SMB or Enterprise networking solutions, which are more expensive.

[Audacity]

Spanning Tree would only be necessary if you accidently plugged in two or more of the Sonos devices on the same network.  This creates a loop, which frames will be forwarded infinitely, bringing down the network.  Spanning Tree would not be available on an unmanaged switch (i.e. the DGL-4500), as you would need to configure Spanning Tree with specific parameters for your network.  Also, Spanning Tree would not exist in consumer-based products.  Only SMB or Enterprise networking solutions, which are more expensive.

Just a small thing, but I thought I should correct you in case someone might have read your post and thought you needed managed switches if you wanted all your Sonos gear to communicate using a wired network.

I have all three Sonos Zone Players (ZP90, ZP120, S5) plugged in to my D-Link unmanaged switch and router and it's all working well - using the wired ethernet network instead of the wireless Sonosnet 2.0 mesh (only the CR200 is using Sonosnet to communicate with the ZPs).

I'm now certain that Sonos gear works over a wired network comprised of a D-Link DGL-4500, DGS-1008D, and a DGS-1005D.  If you want to run Sonos gear over a wired network and this is the only reason that you want a managed switch (that other people have told you it's required), don't listen to them and try your unmanaged switches.  If they aren't one of the infamous models (e.g. Netgear GS108NA, GS608) that you hear about on the Sonos forum, then there is a good chance it will forward BPDUs and "just work".

[Chris Lynch]

@Audacity:  I believe you misinterpreted my comments.  I did not say that you could not deploy Sonos devices with unmanaged switches.  What I was trying to state was IF a vendor was trying to force end users to support Spanning Tree within their home network, this is not practical nor cheap.  No consumer grade switch will support Spanning Tree, as it is not required for the mass market.  Just do not connect two Layer 2 devices (i.e. switches) together with more than a single port.  Or, in the case of the Sonos devices, do not connect more than a single Sonos device to your switch(es.)  This can cause a loop in your network (Spanning Tree would help eliminate this issue), which is very bad.

[Fatman]

It is worth noting that if you are just using Ethernet (which is what I would recommend anyhow) STP shouldn't come up.  STP is used on these devices because of their wireless mesh networking.

[Jav]

I found out the hard way that switches such as the DSS-5+ do not forward STP traffic. As soon as I wired 2 or more Sonos I ended up with a network loop and the associated broadcast storms.
Fortunately it is possible to disable the WiFi on a Sonos. This enabled me to manually break the loops that the STP failed to detect.

[FurryNutz]

Thanks for sharing your information. I presume this issue was resolve due to the date and time since anyone has posted about.

Hope the information will help any future users.

Enjoy.

Step 3: Disabling the link

To disable the WiFi link start by issuing the following http request:

http://<sonos_ip>:1400/wifictrl?wifi=off
You should get the following answer:

wifictrl request succeeded HTTP 200 OK

You can also check that the link has indeed been disabled by going back to the status page. The 'ath0' entry should not be present anymore. The setting is not persistent, so if you happen to be unable to connect to your player after disabling the WiFi you can undo the change by power cycling the player.

If you want to disable the WiFi link for good, simply issue the following http request:

http://<sonos_ip>:1400/wifictrl?wifi=persist-off
The change will now be preserved even after an upgrade. If you ever need to connect the player wirelessly in the future you can turn the WiFi back on as follow:

http://<sonos_ip>:1400/wifictrl?wifi=on

I found out the hard way that switches such as the DSS-5+ do not forward STP traffic. As soon as I wired 2 or more Sonos I ended up with a network loop and the associated broadcast storms.
Fortunately it is possible to disable the WiFi on a Sonos. This enabled me to manually break the loops that the STP failed to detect.