Right now, I am in the process of redesigning my network and I had the Idea to connect my two main switches and my FW with a ring like topology. I know that in a typical home network with a 50/10 WAN connection this is absolutely unnecessary. I want to do this anyway, for learning and bragging purpose.
Assuming that I have several VLANs and on each switch at least one device in each VLAN. All Connections between the two switches and the FW are trunk routes for all VLANs. The Omada Controller is running virtualized on a server connected to one of the switches.
My Goal is to distribute traffic over all connections to avoid bottlenecks. I don’t want traffic for devices within the same subnet to flow through FW and I don’t want Internet traffic flow through the connection between switches.
I first read the LACP documentation for omada and OPNsense, but it is mostly intended for two or more lines between two devices and not for a ring topology like I want.
I then read the ®STP documentation and couldn’t find an option that doesn’t simply cut one connection, but “directs” traffic base on the shortest route.
Did I miss something in the documentation, should I look at another protocol/option, or is this something prosumer hardware like I use simply isn’t capable of?
Spanning tree protocol will kill any concept of “ring topology” and quickly for good reason. You’d end up with broadcast storms overloading and killing your network very quickly.
Pick up a networking fundamentals book. As usual, Oreilly is good for this (https://www.amazon.com/TCP-Network-Administration-OReilly-Networking/dp/0596002971?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=3456f4a6-4e65-40ac-a6fb-9a05e4796c1b#customerReviews)
Anything on the same vlan and subnet will be able to access eachother without additional routing. Only upon crossing vlans and subnets will you need routing.
If you are wanting to increase capacity between switches, use multi-gig backhaul links, and leverage LACP if needed. Male sure that the switches you are using are capable of switching the throughput you need.
I’d be very surprised if you are saturating 10g/40g links, or hitting switch max throughput numbers though.