Quick Reference Guide

PowerConnect B-Series TI24X Configuration Guide 251
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Chapter
10
Configuring Virtual LANs (VLANs)
VLAN overview
The following sections provide details about the VLAN types and features supported on the
PowerConnect B-Series TI24X family of switches.
Types of VLANs
This section describes the VLAN types supported on devices.
VLAN support on PowerConnect devices
The first software release for the PowerConnect B-Series TI24X supports Layer 2 port-based VLANs
only. A Layer 2 port-based VLAN is a set of physical ports that share a common, exclusive Layer 2
broadcast domain. The next section provides more details.
Layer 2 port-based VLANs
On all devices, you can configure port-based VLANs. A port-based VLAN is a subset of ports on a
device that constitutes a Layer 2 broadcast domain.
By default, all the ports on a device are members of the default VLAN. Thus, all the ports on the
device constitute a single Layer 2 broadcast domain. You can configure multiple port-based VLANs.
When you configure a port-based VLAN, the device automatically removes the ports you add to the
VLAN from the default VLAN.
You can configure up to 4094 port-based VLANs on a Layer 2 Switch or Layer 3 Switch. On both
device types, valid VLAN IDs are 1 – 4095. You can configure up to the maximum number of VLANs
within that ID range.
NOTE
If you want to use VLANs 4091 and 4092 as configurable VLANs, you can assign them to different
VLAN IDs. For more information, refer to “Assigning different VLAN IDs to reserved VLANs 4091 and
4092” on page 265.
Each port-based VLAN can contain either tagged or untagged ports. A port cannot be a member of
more than one port-based VLAN unless the port is tagged. 802.1Q tagging allows the port to add a
four-byte tag field, which contains the VLAN ID, to each packet sent on the port. You also can
configure port-based VLANs that span multiple devices by tagging the ports within the VLAN. The
tag enables each device that receives the packet to determine the VLAN the packet belongs to.
802.1Q tagging applies only to Layer 2 VLANs, not to Layer 3 VLANs.
Since each port-based VLAN is a separate Layer 2 broadcast domain, by default each VLAN runs a
separate instance of the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP).
Layer 2 traffic is bridged within a port-based VLAN and Layer 2 broadcasts are sent to all the ports
within the VLAN.