Chapter 2: Scaling VLANs

Scaling Networks

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 1
Chapter 2 - Sections & Objectives
 2.1 VTP, Extended VLANs, and DTP
• Configure enhanced inter-switch connectivity technologies.
 2.2 Troubleshoot Multi-VLAN Issues
• Troubleshoot issues in an inter-VLAN routing environment.
 2.3 Layer 3 Switching
• Implement inter-VLAN routing using Layer 3 switching to forward data in a small to medium-sized
business LAN.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 2
 2.1 VTP, Extended VLANs,
and DTP

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 3
 VTP, Extended VLANs, and DTP
VTP Concepts and Operation
 For a small network VLAN configuration and VLAN trunking configuration is easy to
manage.
 But configuring VLAN and VLAN trunking for large networks with many
interconnected switches can be a very difficult task
 The VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP) is a very useful protocol to create, manage and
maintain a large network with many interconnected switches.
 The VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP) can manage the addition, deletion, and
renaming of VLANs from a central point without manual intervention and VLAN
Trunk Protocol (VTP) thus reduces network administration in a switched network.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 4
VTP, Extended VLANs, and DTP
VTP Concepts and Operation
• VLAN trunking protocol (VTP) allows a network administrator to
manage VLANs on a switch configured as a VTP server.
• VTP stores VLAN configurations in a database called vlan.dat.
• A switch can be configured in one of three VTP modes:
o Server
o Client
o Transparent

• VTP includes three types of

advertisements:
o Summary
o Advertisement request
o Subset advertisements

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 5
VTP, Extended VLANs, and DTP
VTP Concepts and Operation (Cont.)
• VTP has 3 versions
• The show vtp status privileged EXEC command displays the VTP status.

• The configuration revision number is used when determining whether a switch

should keep its existing VLAN database, or overwrite it with the VTP update sent by
another switch.
• When a switch is added to a network, ensure that it has a default VTP configuration.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 6
VTP, Extended VLANs, and DTP
VTP Configuration
 There are 5 steps to VTP configuration:
1. Configure the VTP Server.
2. Configure the VTP Domain Name and Password.
3. Configure the VTP Clients.
4. Configure VLANs on the VTP Server.
5. Verify the VTP Clients have received the new VLAN information.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 7
VTP, Extended VLANs, and DTP
Extended VLANs
• Normal range VLANs are identified by a VLAN ID between 1 and 1005.
• Extended range VLANs are identified by a VLAN ID between 1006 and
4094.
• VTP does not learn extended range VLANs.
 Creating a VLAN
• In addition to entering a single VLAN ID, a series of VLAN IDs can be
entered that are separated by commas, or as range of VLAN IDs
separated by hyphens.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 8
VTP, Extended VLANs, and DTP
Extended VLANs (Cont.)
 Assigning Ports to VLANs
• After creating a VLAN, the next step is to assign ports to the VLAN.

 Verifying VLAN Information

• VLAN configurations can be validated using Cisco IOS show commands.
 Configuring Extended VLANs
• To configure an extended VLAN on a 2960 switch it must be set to VTP
transparent mode.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 9
VTP, Extended VLANs, and DTP
Dynamic Trunking Protocol
 DTP
• DTP manages trunk negotiation only if the port on the neighbor switch
is configured in a trunk mode that supports DTP.
• Turn off DTP on interfaces on a Cisco switch that is connected to
devices that do not support DTP.
• To enable trunking from a Cisco switch to a device that does not
support DTP, use the switchport mode trunk and switchport
nonegotiate interface configuration mode commands.
 There are 5 commands to support different trunking modes:
• switchport mode access
• switchport mode dynamic auto
• switchport mode dynamic desirable
• switchport mode trunk
• switchport nonegotiate

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 10
1. Both interfaces are configured with "dynamic desirable" mode
 Both interface will generate DTP messages. Both interface can see that
the other interface is capable to form a trunk.

2. One interface is configured with "dynamic desirable" mode and other interface is
configured with "dynamic auto" mode
A switch interface which is configured as DTP "dynamic auto" mode will not generate
DTP messages on the interface. DTP "dynamic auto" interface will only listen
passively for DTP messages from other side switch's interface.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 11
 3. Both interfaces are configured with "dynamic auto" mode
 When both the two connecting interfaces are configured as DTP "dynamic auto"
mode, both interface will not generate DTP messages. Interfaces can not see
whether the other interface is capable to form a trunk.

4. Both interfaces are configured with "trunk" mode

When both interfaces are configured with "trunk" mode, DTP messages are exchanged
and trunk link will be established between two switches.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 12
5. One interface is configured with "trunk" mode and other interface is configured with
"dynamic desirable" mode

 When one interface is configured with "trunk" mode and other interface is
configured with "dynamic desirable" mode, DTP messages are exchanged and a
trunk link is established between two switches.

6. One interface is configured with "trunk" mode and other interface is

configured with "dynamic auto" mode
When interface is configured with "trunk" mode and other interface is configured with
"dynamic auto" mode, "trunk" mode interface will generate DTP messages and a trunk link
is established between two switches.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 13
 2.2 Troubleshoot Multi-
VLAN Issues

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 14
 Troubleshoot Multi-VLAN Issues
Inter-VLAN Configuration Issues
• To delete a VLAN, use the no vlan vlan-id global configuration mode
command.
• If a switch port is not configured for the correct VLAN, devices
configured on that VLAN cannot connect to the router interface.
• When a problem is suspected with a switch configuration, use the
various verification commands to examine the configuration and
identify the problem.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 15
 Troubleshoot Multi-VLAN Issues
Inter-VLAN Configuration Issues (Cont.)
 Interface Issues
• When enabling inter-VLAN routing on a router, one of the most
common configuration errors is to connect the physical router
interface to the wrong switch port.
 Verify Routing Configuration
• With router-on-a-stick configurations, a common problem is assigning
the wrong VLAN ID to the subinterface.
• Using the show interfaces and the show running-config commands
can be useful in troubleshooting this type of issue.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 16
 Troubleshoot Multi-VLAN Issues
IP Addressing Issues
 IP Addresses and Subnet Masks
• For inter-VLAN routing to operate, a router must be connected to all
VLANs, either by separate physical interfaces or by subinterfaces.

• Each interface, or subinterface, must be assigned an IP address that

corresponds to the subnet to which it is connected.
• Use the show running-config and show ip interface commands to 17
Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential
 Troubleshoot Multi-VLAN Issues
VTP and DTP Issues
 Troubleshoot VTP Issues
• There are 5 common problems with VTP:
o Incompatible VTP Versions
o VTP Password Issues
o Incorrect VTP Domain Name
o All Switches Set to Client Mode
o Incorrect Configuration Revision
Number

 Troubleshoot DTP Issues

• there are three common problems
associated with trunks.
o Trunk mode mismatches
o Allowed VLANs on trunks
o Native VLAN mismatches
Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 18
 2.3 Layer 3 Switching

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 19
 Layer 3 Switching
Layer 3 Switching Operation and
Configuration
 Layer 3 Switching
• A Layer 3 switch is a specialized hardware device used in network routing.
Layer 3 switches technically have a lot in common with traditional routers, and
not just in physical appearance.
• Both can support the same routing protocols, inspect incoming packets and
make dynamic routing decisions based on the source and destination
addresses inside.

• Catalyst multilayer switches support the following types of Layer 3 interfaces:

o Routed port
o Switch virtual interface (SVI)

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 20
 How Layer 3 Switches Work
 A traditional switch dynamically routes traffic between its individual physical ports
according to the physical addresses (MAC addresses) of connected devices.
 Layer 3 switches use this capability when managing traffic within a LAN.
 They also expand on this by utilizing IP address information to make routing
decisions when managing traffic between LANs. In contrast, Layer 4 switches also
utilize TCP or UDP port numbers.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 21
 Inter-VLAN Routing and SVIs
• Routing can be transferred to the core and the distribution layers (and
sometimes even the access layer) without impacting network performance.
•  An SVI can be created for any VLAN that exists on the switch.
• SVIs are created the first time the VLAN interface configuration mode is entered for a particular VLAN SVI.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 22
 Layer 3 Switching
Layer 3 Switching Operation and
Configuration (Cont.)
 Inter-VLAN Routing with Routed Ports
• A routed port is a physical port that
acts similarly to an interface on a router.
• A routed port is not associated with
a particular VLAN.
• Routed ports on a Cisco IOS switch do
not support subinterfaces.
• Routed ports are used for point-to-point
links.
• To configure routed ports, use the 
no switchport interface configuration mode
command on the appropriate ports.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 23
 Layer 3 Switching
Troubleshoot Layer 3 Switching
 Layer 3 Switch Configuration Issues
• Check  the following configurations for accuracy:
o VLANs - VLANs must be defined across all the switches. VLANs
must be enabled on the trunk ports. Ports must be in the right
VLANs.
o SVIs - SVIs must have the correct IP address or subnet mask.
SVIs must be up. Each SVI must match with the VLAN number.
o Routing - Routing must be enabled. Each interface or network
should be added to the routing protocol, or static routes entered,
where appropriate.
o Hosts - Hosts must have the correct IP address or subnet mask.
Hosts must have a default gateway associated with an SVI or
routed port.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 24
 2.4 Chapter Summary

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 25
Chapter Summary
Summary
 VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP) reduces administration of VLANs in a
switched network. A switch configured as the VTP server distributes and
synchronizes VLAN information over trunk links to VTP-enabled
switches throughout the domain.
 The three VTP modes are Server, Client and Transparent.
 The configuration revision number is used when determining whether a
VTP switch should keep or update its existing VLAN database. A switch
will overwrite its existing VLAN database if it receives a VTP update
from another switch in the same domain with a higher configuration
revision number. Therefore, when a switch is being added to a VTP
domain it must have the default VTP configuration or a lower
configuration revision number than the VTP server.
 Troubleshooting VTP can also involve dealing with errors caused by
incompatible VTP versions and incorrectly configured domain names or
passwords.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 26
Chapter Summary
Summary (Cont.)
 Trunk negotiation is managed by the Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP), which
operates on a point-to-point basis between network devices. DTP is a Cisco
proprietary protocol that is automatically enabled on Catalyst 2960 and Catalyst
3560 Series switches. A general best practice when a trunk link is required is to
set the interface to trunk and nonegotiate. On links where trunking is not
intended, DTP should be turned off.
 When troubleshooting DTP, problems can be related to trunk mode mismatches,
allowed VLANS on a trunk, and native VLAN mismatches.
 Layer 3 switching using Switch Virtual Interfaces (SVIs) is a method of inter-
VLAN routing that can be configured on Catalyst 2960 switches. An SVI with
appropriate IP addressing is configured for each VLAN and provides Layer 3
processing for packets to or from all switch ports associated with those VLANs.
 Another method of Layer 3 inter-VLAN routing is using routed ports. A routed
port is a physical port that acts similarly to an interface on a router. Routed ports
are mostly configured between switches in the core and distribution layer.
 Troubleshooting inter-VLAN routing with a router or a Layer 3 switch are similar.
Common errors involve VLAN, trunk, Layer 3 interface, and IP address
configurations.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 27
 You are a network administrator at ComputerNetworkingNotes.com. Company has
three offices. Offices are connected with each other via layer 2 links. For
redundancy purpose each office has one more layer 2 link. Company has two
department sales and management. In each office we have one PC from each
department. Company has one router. You can use router's Ethernet port for inter
VLAN communication.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 28