OPNsense does not recognize network switch on OPT1

[Ice21]

FW4B
WAN = Internet
LAN = Netgear router as AP
OPT1 = TP-link unmanaged network switch

I have a laptop connected to the switch and I'm having issues getting my new OPNsense router to recognize anything from that switch. According to this other post, I followed it by adding the firewall rules but I still can't get internet connection via switch ethernet. Like the OP of that post, I too am a noob at this. Took me a couple of hours setting up the netgear router wifi to work as AP only to find out that it turns off the wifi when switching to AP as well as enabling guest connections. Both have been fixed but this network switch issue is stumping me.

[meyergru]

A router is not a switch.

Conceptually, OPT1 and LAN are two different interfaces. So it all depends on how you configure them. What you probably want is to bridge both physical ports to one logical interface, not have to different interfaces with different subnets.

This is explained here.

If that is something different than you actually want, you should probably read this first.

[Ice21]

Thank you for the clarification! I managed to get it to work. With your response, link, and this video, I got ethernet connection now. I bridged OPT1 (Netgear router) and OPT2 (network switch) and assigned them to LAN.

[Ice21]

I have a question though. I bridged the Netgear router to OPT1 and the network switch to OPT2. With my laptop connected via ethernet to the switch, how do I connect to the Netgear router to change its settings. I check my router IP settings but it's not registering. I'm now considering having the Netgear router itself as the sole LAN connection to the OPNsense router and just stem the network switch off of that.

[meyergru]

Again: A router is not a switch - nor an access point. If your Netgear router is in router mode, OPT1 is probably connected to the WAN port of the Netgear, with NAT and firewall of that enabled. If it is configured that way, clients behin the Netgear are provisioned by it and get different IPs from your LAN.

True AP mode would mean that the Netgear would act as an AP only and the WAN port should probably be left unused.

I can only guess here about typical beginner problems. Every specifiy part of your setup matters, which is why we typically ask you to draw a network plan and show every bit of the configuration. Often times, while you do that, you will notice what's wrong by yourself.