A number of low-cost Ethernet switches on the market are based
on the Realtek RTL8316B and RTL8324 controllers
(see the Realtek
Web page for data sheets).
One that is easily available in my area is the
16-port model made by Edimax, the Edimax Es3116p.
The newer models of this switch are equipped with a RTL8316B chip.
This chip can be controlled or reconfigured in software through the
Ethernet, and perform a number of useful functions, such as
setting port features (duplex/speed), VLAN configuration (tag
insertion and removal), port trunking, traffic shaping (not kidding; the RTL8316
can do bandwidth control on each port between 128kbit/s and 8Mbit/s),
reading statistic counters, even mirroring.
Important note: the rrcp site mentions that some newer RTL8316B
chips have some features disabled. Please look at
this page
for more info.
The remote control feature is controlled through either an EEPROM (but this is often not present on the cheapest models), or through a 'strapping' pin, i.e. the presence of a pullup resistor on one of the pins of the chip. This feature is also often disabled on many of the cheap models, for a variety of reasons (cost, security).
To enable the 'remote control'
feature - all it takes is solder a 1K resistor between pin 121
and Vcc, as in the picture below.
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT IF YOU DECIDE TO MODIFY YOUR SWITCH,
YOU MUST KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT.
SOLDERING
IN SUCH A SMALL AREA REQUIRES SOME SKILLS TO AVOID BREAKING
TRACES OR COMPONENTS OR SHORTING PINS TOGETHER.
In the picture above, you see the RTL8136B with the strapping resistor on pin 121. The chip has 128 pins, numbered counterclockwise starting from the bottom left corner (near the white triangle). Pin 128 (power supply, incidentally) is just above the triangle, pin 121 just a little bit above. The pin is actually one of the TxD (for port 5), and it has in series a 50 Ohm resistor, labeled R19. Next to it there are spare pads for R45, which is exactly the strapping resistor that I need. Not having a small enough device, i carefully soldered the resistor on one of the pads of R19, and the other terminal goes to the power pad where you could also connect the serial EEPROM to store configuration information.
Another picture with more details on R19 and R45
The first thing you can do to make sure that the modification worked is to run build the program and run it as
./rtl8316b rl0 scanto see if your network has one or more RRCP-aware switches. If your modification is successful, you should see one at least. After that you can use all the options shown by the program to control your switch. Unfortunately, you will not be able to save your configuration unless you also have (or install) an EEPROM on the switch, that will be used to store configuration data across hard reboots or power losses.
As an example, i connected the eeprom as shown here.
Above: a few pullups
and series resistors to connect to the EEPROM, a 24C02).
Below, the actual EEPROM and an expansion socket to connect
a microcontroller or other I2C stuff.
This Elexol I/O device is suspiciously similar to the project described above - if you look at the pictures on the elexol site, it shows a large Realtek chip which looks identical to the 8316. The page mentions UDP/IP as a communication protocol, which is completely consistent with the way the 8316 exchanges information with the outside world. It is well possible that the elexol device is based around an 8316 and a microcontroller to connect the I2C bus to its 24 digital I/O lines.