VLANs

Network Management
Objectives
 1 VLAN Segmentation
• Explain the purpose of VLANs in a switched network.
• Explain how a switch forwards frames based on VLAN configuration in a multi-switch
environment.
 2 VLAN Implementations
• Configure a switch port to be assigned to a VLAN based on requirements.
• Configure a trunk port on a LAN switch.
• Troubleshoot VLAN and trunk configurations in a switched network.
 3 Inter-VLAN Routing Using Routers
• Describe the two options for configuring Inter-VLAN routing.
• Configure legacy Inter-VLAN Routing.
• Configure Router-on-a-Stick Inter-VLAN Routing
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VLAN Segmentation

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Overview of VLANs
VLAN Definitions
 VLANs can segment LAN devices without regard for
the physical location of the user or device.
• In the figure, IT users on the first, second, and third
floors are all on the same LAN segment. The same is
true for HR and Sales users.
 A VLAN is a logical partition of a Layer 2 network.
• Multiple partitions can be created and multiple VLANs
can co-exist.
• The partitioning of the Layer 2 network takes place
inside a Layer 2 device, usually via a switch.
• Each VLAN is a broadcast domain that can span
multiple physical LAN segments.  VLANs are mutually isolated and packets
• Hosts on the same VLAN are unaware of the VLAN’s can only pass between VLANs via a router.
existence.

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Overview of VLANs
Benefits of VLANs

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Overview of VLANs
Types of VLANs
 Common types of VLANs:
Default VLAN Assignment
• Default VLAN – Also known as VLAN 1. All switch
ports are members of VLAN 1 by default.
• Data VLAN – Data VLANs are commonly created
for specific groups of users or devices. They carry
user generated traffic.
• Native VLAN – This is the VLAN that carries all
untagged traffic. This is traffic that does not
originate from a VLAN port (e.g., STP BPDU traffic
exchanged between STP enabled switches). The
native VLAN is VLAN 1 by default. Initially, all switch ports are members of VLAN 1.
• Management VLAN – This is a VLAN that is
created to carry network management traffic
including SSH, SNMP, Syslog, and more. VLAN 1
is the default VLAN used for network
management.
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Overview of VLANs
Voice VLANs
 To support time-sensitive voice traffic, Cisco
switches support a voice VLAN that requires:
• Assured bandwidth
• Delay of less than 150 ms across the network to
ensure voice quality
• Transmission priority over other types of network
traffic
• Ability to be routed around congested areas on the
network.

 The voice VLAN feature enables access ports to carry user and IP voice traffic.
• In the figure, the S3 F0/18 interface has been configured to tag student traffic on VLAN 20 and voice
traffic on VLAN 150.

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Overview of VLANs
Packet Tracer – Who Hears the Broadcast?

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VLANs in a Multi-Switched Environment
VLAN Trunks
 A VLAN trunk is a point-to-point link
that carries more than one VLAN.
• Usually established between switches
to support intra VLAN communication.
• A VLAN trunk or trunk ports are not
associated to any VLANs.

 Cisco IOS supports IEEE 802.1q, a

popular VLAN trunk protocol.

The links between switches S1 and S2, and S1 and S3 are

configured to transmit traffic coming from VLANs 10, 20, 30,
and 99 across the network.

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VLANs in a Multi-Switched Environment
Controlling Broadcast Domains with VLANs
 If a switch port receives a broadcast frame, it forwards it out all ports except the originating port.
• Eventually the entire network receives the broadcast because the network is one broadcast domain.
 VLANs can be used to limit the reach of broadcast frames because each VLAN is a broadcast
domain.
• VLANs help control the reach of broadcast frames and their impact in the network.

 In the figure, PC1 on VLAN 10 sends a

broadcast frame.
• Trunk links between S2 - S1 and S1 - S3
propagate the broadcast to other devices in
VLAN 10.
• Only devices in the same VLAN receive the
broadcast therefore, PC4 would receive the
broadcast.
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VLANs in a Multi-Switched Environment
Tagging Ethernet Frames for VLAN Identification
 Before a frame is forwarded across a trunk link, it must be tagged with its VLAN information.
• Frame tagging is the process of adding a VLAN identification header to the frame.
• It is used to properly transmit multiple VLAN frames through a trunk link.

 IEEE 802.1Q is a vey popular VLAN trunking protocol that defines the structure of the tagging header
added to the frame.
• Switches add VLAN tagging information after the
Source MAC address field.
• The fields in the 802.1Q VLAN tag includes VLAN ID
(VID).
• Trunk links add the tag information before sending the
frame and then remove the tags before forwarding
frames through non-trunk ports.

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VLANs in a Multi-Switched Environment
Native VLANs and 802.1Q Tagging
 Control traffic sent on the native VLAN should not
be tagged.

 Frames received untagged, remain untagged and

are placed in the native VLAN when forwarded.
 If there are no ports associated to the native VLAN
and no other trunk links, an untagged frame is
dropped.

 When configuring a switch port on a Cisco switch,

configure devices so that they do not send tagged
frames on the native VLAN.

 In Cisco switches, the native VLAN is VLAN 1, by

default.

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VLANs in a Multi-Switched Environment
Voice VLAN Tagging
 An access port connecting a Cisco IP
phone can be configured to use two
separate VLANs:
• A VLAN for voice traffic
• A VLAN for data traffic from a device
attached to the phone.

 The link between the switch and the IP

phone behaves like a trunk to carry traffic  Cisco IP Phone contains an integrated three-port 10/100
from both VLANs. switch dedicated to these devices:
• Port 1 connects to the switch or other VoIP device.
• Port 2 is an internal 10/100 interface that carries the
IP phone traffic.
• Port 3 (access port) connects to a PC or other device.
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VLANs in a Multi-Switched Environment
Packet Tracer – Investigating a VLAN Implementation

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VLAN Implementation

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VLAN Assignment
VLAN Ranges on Catalyst Switches
 VLANs are split into two categories:
• Normal range VLANs
• VLAN numbers from 1 to 1,005  Cisco Catalyst 2960 and 3560 Series
switches support over 4,000 VLANs.
• Configurations stored in the vlan.dat (in the flash
memory)
• IDs 1002 through 1005 are reserved for legacy Token
Ring and Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)
VLANs, automatically created and cannot be
removed.
• Extended Range VLANs
• VLAN numbers from 1,006 to 4,096
• Configurations stored in the running configuration
(NVRAM)
• VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP) does not learn
extended VLANs
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VLAN Assignment
Creating a VLAN

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VLAN Assignment
Assigning Ports to VLANs

Example 1 Example 2

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VLAN Assignment
Changing VLAN Port Membership
 Remove VLAN Assignment

Even though interface

F0/18 was previously
assigned to VLAN 20, it
reset to the default
VLAN1.

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VLAN Assignment
Deleting VLANs
 Use the no vlan vlan-id global configuration mode command to remove VLAN.

 To delete the entire vlan.dat file, use the delete flash:vlan.dat privileged EXEC mode command.
• delete vlan.dat can be used if the vlan.dat file has not been moved from its default location.

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VLAN Assignment
Verifying VLAN Information
 VLAN configurations can be validated using the Cisco IOS show vlan and show interfaces
command options.

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VLAN Trunks
Configuring IEEE 802.1q Trunk Links

Native VLAN
VLAN 99
172.17.99.0/24

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VLAN Trunks
Resetting the Trunk to Default State

F0/1 is
configured
as an
access
port which
removes
the trunk
feature.

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VLAN Trunks
Verifying Trunk Configuration

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Troubleshoot VLANs and Trunks
IP Addressing Issues with VLANs
 Common practice to associate a
VLAN with an IP network.
• Different IP networks must
communicate through a router.
• All devices within a VLAN must be
part of the same IP network to
communicate.

 In the figure, PC1 cannot

communicate to the server because it
has a wrong IP address configured.

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Troubleshoot VLANs and Trunks
Missing VLANs
 If all the IP address mismatches have been solved, but the device still cannot connect, check if the
VLAN exists in the switch.
If the VLAN to which the port belongs is
deleted, the port becomes inactive and is
unable to communicate with the rest of the
network.
• It is not functional until the missing VLAN is
created or the VLAN is removed from the port.

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Troubleshoot VLANs and Trunks
Introduction to Troubleshooting Trunks

In this example, the Native VLAN should be VLAN 99

however, the output of the command identifies VLAN 2 as
the Native VLAN.
• To solve this problem, configure the same native VLAN on
both sides.

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Troubleshoot VLANs and Trunks
Common Problems with Trunks
 Trunking issues are usually associated with incorrect configurations.

 The most common type of trunk configuration errors are:

 When a trunk problem is suspected, it is recommended to troubleshoot in the order shown above.

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Troubleshoot VLANs and Trunks
Incorrect Port Mode
 In this example, PC4 cannot reach the Web server.
• The trunk links on S1 and S3 are verified and reveal that the
S3 trunk port has been configured as an access port.

To resolve the issue, the S3 F03 port

is configured as a trunk link.

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Troubleshoot VLANs and Trunks
Incorrect VLAN List
 In this example, PC5 cannot reach the Student Email server.
• The output of the switchport trunk allowed vlan command reveals S1 is not allowing VLAN 20.

To resolve the issue, the S1 F0/1 port is

configured to allow VLANs 10, 20, and 99.

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Inter-VLAN Routing Using Routers

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Inter-VLAN Routing Operation
What is Inter-VLAN Routing?
 Layer 2 switches cannot forward traffic between VLANs without the assistance of a router.

 Inter-VLAN routing is a process for forwarding network traffic from one VLAN to another, using a
router.

 There are three options for inter-VLAN routing:

• Legacy inter-VLAN routing
• Router-on-a-Stick
• Layer 3 switching using SVIs

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Inter-VLAN Routing Operation
Legacy Inter-VLAN Routing
 In the past: In this example, the router was configured with two separate
• Router interfaces were used to route physical interfaces to interact with the different VLANs and perform
the routing.
between VLANs.
• Each VLAN was connected to a different
physical router interface.
• Packets would arrive on the router through
one interface, be routed and leave through
another.
• Because the router interfaces were
connected to VLANs and had IP
addresses from that specific VLAN,
routing between VLANs was achieved.
• Large networks with large number of
VLANs required many router interfaces.

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Inter-VLAN Routing Operation
Router-on-a-Stick Inter-VLAN Routing

 The router-on-a-stick approach uses only In this example, the R1 interface is configured as a trunk link and
one of the router’s physical interface. connects to the trunk F0/4 port on S1.
• Router accepts VLAN-tagged traffic on the trunk interface
• One of the router’s physical interfaces is • Router internally routes between the VLANs using subinterfaces.
configured as a 802.1Q trunk port so it can • Router then forwards the routed traffic as VLAN-tagged for the
destination VLAN out the trunk link.
understand VLAN tags.
• Logical subinterfaces are created; one
subinterface per VLAN.
• Each subinterface is configured with an IP
address from the VLAN it represents.
• VLAN members (hosts) are configured to
use the subinterface address as a default
gateway.

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Configure Legacy Inter-VLAN Routing
Configure Legacy Inter-VLAN Routing: Preparation
 Legacy inter-VLAN routing requires routers
to have multiple physical interfaces.
 Each one of the router’s physical interfaces
is connected to a unique VLAN.
 Each interface is also configured with an IP
address for the subnet associated with the
particular VLAN.

 Network devices use the router as a

gateway to access the devices connected
to the other VLANs.

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Configure Legacy Inter-VLAN Routing
Configure Legacy Inter-VLAN Routing: Switch Configuration

 Configure the VLANs on the switch and then

assign the ports to their respective VLANs.
 In this example, the S1 ports are configured as
follows:
• Ports F0/4 and F0/11 of S1 are on VLAN 10
• Ports F0/5 and F0/16 ports are on VLAN 30.

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Configure Legacy Inter-VLAN Routing
Configure Legacy Inter-VLAN Routing: Router Interface Configuration

 Next configure the router interfaces.

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Configure Router-on-a-Stick Inter-VLAN Routing
Configure Router-on-a Stick: Preparation
 An alternative to legacy inter-VLAN routing is
to use VLAN trunking and subinterfaces.
 VLAN trunking allows a single physical router
interface to route traffic for multiple VLANs.
 The physical interface of the router must be
connected to a trunk link on the adjacent
switch.

 On the router, subinterfaces are created for

each unique VLAN.

 Each subinterface is assigned an IP address

specific to its subnet or VLAN and is also
configured to tag frames for that VLAN.

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Configure Router-on-a-Stick Inter-VLAN Routing
Configure Router-on-a Stick: Switch Configuration

 To enable inter-VLAN routing

using router-on-a stick, start
by enabling trunking on the
switch port that is connected
to the router.

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Configure Router-on-a-Stick Inter-VLAN Routing
Configure Router-on-a Stick: Router Subinterface Configuration
 The router-on-a-stick method requires
subinterfaces to be configured for each
routable VLAN.
• The subinterfaces must be configured to
support VLANs using the encapsulation
dot1Q VLAN-ID interface configuration
command.

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Configure Router-on-a-Stick Inter-VLAN Routing
Configure Router-on-a Stick: Verifying Subinterfaces
 By default, Cisco routers are configured to route traffic between local subinterfaces.
• As a result, routing does not specifically need to be enabled.
 Use the show vlan and show ip route commands to verify the subinterface configurations.

The show vlan command displays information about the The show ip route command displays the routing table containing
Cisco IOS VLAN subinterfaces. the networks associated with outgoing subinterfaces.

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Configure Router-on-a-Stick Inter-VLAN Routing
Configure Router-on-a Stick: Verifying Routing
 Remote VLAN device connectivity can be tested
using the ping command.
• The command sends an ICMP echo request and
when a host receives an ICMP echo request, it
responds with an ICMP echo reply.

 Tracert is a useful utility for confirming the routed

path taken between two devices.

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