The board is not a picture next to your configuration, it is your configuration. What you draw decides which port becomes a trunk, which becomes an access port, and where a device has its uplink. The list view and the board show the same site.
Where it sits
The board belongs to site mode, so to a network with more than one device. At the top you switch between the list view, the board and the Wi-Fi plan. You can jump back and forth without losing anything; it is the same site throughout.
Placing devices
Add devices with the Device button. Under Add sit the blocks you do not configure but do want on the drawing: internet, a client, a server, a hypervisor and a location. Right-click an empty spot for the same menu, and the new block lands exactly there.
Drag a block by its top bar to move it. Double-click a device to configure it; that takes you to the same screen as in the list. Tidy up lays everything out neatly, and Ctrl+Z undoes a step (Ctrl+Y redoes it). The details panel can sit beside the board, float over it, or be folded away entirely.
Running cables
Drag from a port to a port. The cable carries the speed it runs at, so a gigabit port against a 10-gigabit one shows up immediately. Further:
- Click a cable to select it; it turns amber and the ports at both ends light up.
- Click a port that has a cable to select that cable.
- Where cables lie on top of each other, press Tab to go to the next one under your pointer (Shift+Tab goes back).
- Right-click a port for its settings: name or comment, in the bridge or not, the VLAN mode and the untagged VLAN, PoE-out, disable the port, remove the cable, and back to the default. The WAN port says it is the WAN port, and that moving the internet cable is how you change that.
- Delete removes whatever you have selected.
This is not only drawing. A port with a cable to another device in the site becomes a trunk carrying every VLAN; the remaining ports become access ports on the first VLAN in the table. A device you leave out of the cabling gets a guessed trunk port, and the checks tell you that it is still a guess.
More than routers and switches
- Internet — attach an internet connection to your router. You give the speed of the subscription, the provider and the kind of connection (fibre, cable, DSL, 4G/5G, satellite or fixed wireless), and whether this is the main line or the backup. Where we have a preset for that provider, the WAN port gets those settings. The board warns you when the subscription is faster than the port it lands on, and says which port would be fast enough.
- Servers, hypervisors and clients — gear you do not configure but do want on the drawing, with their VLAN and address. On a hypervisor you fill in the virtual machines, and the VLANs they use appear by themselves on the switch port that host is cabled to: management untagged, the rest tagged.
- Locations — the + Location button draws an area for a second office or a data centre. Drag devices into it and give the location its own address range, for example 10.2, so its networks do not clash with the main site.
- Tunnels — connect two locations with WireGuard, GRE, IPIP, EoIP or VXLAN. The board draws the tunnel and the configuration lands on both ends. See Example: two locations with a tunnel.
The VLAN button
VLANs opens the site's table: id, name, router address, DHCP, internet, isolated and management. That table applies to every device, so a tag means the same network everywhere. Per device you then pick which VLANs it carries; by default that is all of them.
Seeing whether it holds up
Traffic shows what is allowed to flow between locations, VLANs and systems. It is checked against the scripts as the tool generates them right now: the firewall and raw rules, the routes, WireGuard and BGP of every router. Per tunnel you see whether traffic gets through, partly, or not at all, and with Follow traffic you pick a from and a to and see which stage stops it: the route, the firewall, WireGuard or the way back.
Errors and warnings appear when you generate the scripts, and point at the cable or the device they are about. The common ones: a cable into a port that is the WAN port, a port with two cables on it, a cable that closes a loop (RSTP then blocks one path, so it works but it does not get faster), copper to SFP, and a different MTU at the two ends of a cable. That last one is the nastiest: large packets then disappear without an error.
Working comfortably
Zoom with the buttons or Ctrl and the scroll wheel, Fit brings everything into view, and full screen gives you the whole screen for large networks. At the bottom sits a count of devices and cables. The board remembers where you were.
Further reading: Multiple devices in one site and Checks about cabling.