New to VLANs, help.

[CANIndiana]

Ok, I have 5 Dell PowerConnect 6248 Layer 3 switches. I have two of them set up as 192.168.0.x, one set up as 192.168.1.x, and and 2 that need to be set up as 192.168.2.x and a spare.

I've given each of the switches and IP address on the necessary subnet.

Port 1 on each switch is set as a trunk port and assigned to a VLAN. Each switch has a VLAN set up. S1 is VLAN10, S2 is VLAN20 and S3 and 4 are VLAN30.

The hard part for me and where I need help is getting the switches to talk to each other. Right now I have two of the switches on my desk and if I give my test machines a static IP and put them on the same VLAN they talk to each other. So far so good there. What I need to know how to do is set up routing on the switches so that computers in one VLAN such as VLAN10 can communicate with VLAN30 for example.

I had ordered the Layer 3 switches so all the routing would be handled at the switches but I don't see any good guides on how to set this stuff up. FWIW I'm using the web interface to do all this too.

Thanks in advance!

 

[North323]

if they are all directly connected you should be good as long as the port you connect them on have the same subnet address. otherwise, you may have to add static routes

 

[CANIndiana]

They're different subnets.For example one switch is 192.168.0.x with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and the other switch is 192.168.1.x and a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Each of those is a different VLAN.

I don't have much experience with routing I normally just do Windows admin, active directory, etc.

 

[North323]

what is the topology going to look like? are these switches going to be on different parts of the network? in order for them to communicate with each other, they need to be connected somehow. either a port daisy chained or a router upstream that can route traffic between these switches

 

[CANIndiana]

They're layer 3 switches. They have routing capabilities built in. I don't know how to configure it. The switches are/will be connected together.

 

[North323]

then you wont have an issue. the switches will be able to route to 'directly' connected devices. as long as the ports you have them connected to had an IP address

 

[CANIndiana]

Can you explain that for me? Sorry if I'm sounding extremely dense but in my case it's better to over simplify than to assume I know something so as to avoid any flubs on my part.

By the way, thanks for your help.

 

[North323]

switch one has 24 ports for example and this switch will connect to switch 2 that also has 24 ports. you connect these two switches on port 24 of each switch.

switch one port 24 config will look like this

vlan20
ip address 192.168.20.x

swith two port 24 config will look like this

vlan20
ip address 192.168.20.y

therefore, these two switches will know how to inter-vlan routing because these vlan's are 'directly connected'

 

[CANIndiana]

Ok, that makes sense to me since they're both on the same subnet.

What do I do when all ports on switch one are

vlan10
ip 192.168.0.x

and ports on switch two are

vlan20
ip 192.168.1.x

 

[burtsbees]

Trunk them.

int fa0/24
switchport mode trunk
switchport native vlan 10
switchport allowed vlan 10,20
switchport trunk encaps dot1q

Same with the other switch. Then put access ports in each switch, computers in vlan 10 plug into vlan 10 ports, and same with respect to vlan 20 computers and vlan 20 ports.

/

tim@tim-laptop ~ $ sudo apt-get install windows
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package windows...Thank Goodness!

 

[burtsbees]

That is in the case of a layer 2 switch. Then VLAN 10 being the management vlan, you need an SVI (layer 3 vlan) for the management...

int vlan 10
ip add x.x.x.x y.y.y.y
no shut

On both switches.

/

tim@tim-laptop ~ $ sudo apt-get install windows
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package windows...Thank Goodness!

 

[CANIndiana]

burtsbees: I'm not seeing where to change those settings in the GUI. I realize you're giving me the CLI way to do it but I don't really understand CLI and since I'm having a hard time with the switches anyway, do you know how to do it in the GUI?

 

[burtsbees]

No clue. Is this SDM, I assume? WHat GUI?

/

tim@tim-laptop ~ $ sudo apt-get install windows
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package windows...Thank Goodness!

 

[CANIndiana]

The the web interface for the switch.

 

[CANIndiana]

I think I got it working. I can ping back and forth between a machine on s1 and one on s2 each with a different subnet.

I created the trunk port on each switch as port 1 and I also added static routes on each switch for each subnet.

It seems to work just fine, the only thing that doesn't happen, and this very well may be the point of the VLANs is that if I browse the network neighborhood I only see the computers on the local vlan. Say if I'm on VLAN10, I won't see computers on VLAN20 but again, if I know the name of the machine and the share I can access it.

 

[CANIndiana]

Ok scratch that...apparently the communication was happening because I set the default gateway to the same switch for each computer instead of setting the gateway to the respective switch each computer is on.

Anyone have any more ideas?

 

[burtsbees]

I can only tell you that once you trunk the ports, the switches should see all vlans. They route their own vlans. The default gateway of each pc is that of whatever vlan it is on.

I could tell you how to get this to work on a Cisco switch...

pc1---switch1---trunk---switch2---pc2
| |
| |
pc3 pc4

All pcs can be in different vlans, the same vlan, etc. Whatever you want. The switches do the routing if they are true layer 3 switches. Let's say switch 1 has vlans 1 and 2, 1.1.1.0/24 and 2.2.2.0/24. PC1=1.1.1.1, pc2=2.2.2.2. Switch 2 has vlans 2 and 3, 2.2.2.0 and 3.3.3.0. pc3=3.3.3.1 and pc4=2.2.2.5. If they are trunked properly, and an SVI is created for each vlan, there are no gateways needed on the switches---just the pc's. The switches are directly connected, and so are their vlans.

/

tim@tim-laptop ~ $ sudo apt-get install windows
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package windows...Thank Goodness!

 

[CANIndiana]

What I'm saying is:

Pc1 (switch1 vlan10)
192.168.0.35
255.255.255.0
192.168.0.230

can see

PC2 (switch2 vlan20)
192.168.1.50
255.255.255.0
192.168.0.230

but PC1 cannot see PC2 if I change the gateway of PC2 to be 192.168.1.230 where 192.168.0.230 is the IP of switch2.

The way it sounds is as if the trunking might not be working correctly?

 

[burtsbees]

In a layer 3 switch, each vlan has its own IP address. That would be the gateway of each pc in that vlan. Are these actually layer 3 switches?

/

tim@tim-laptop ~ $ sudo apt-get install windows
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package windows...Thank Goodness!

 

[CANIndiana]

Yes they are actually layer3 switches. This is the switch

http://www.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/networking/pwcnt_6248/pd.aspx?refid=pwcnt_6248&cs=555&s=biz

I managed to find out how to get the config off of the switch. Here it is.

!Current Configuration:
!System Description "PowerConnect 6248, 2.2.0.3, VxWorks5.5.1"
!System Software Version 2.2.0.3
!
configure
vlan database
vlan  10,20
vlan association subnet 192.168.0.0 255.255.255.0 10
vlan association subnet 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 20
exit
stack
member 1 2
exit
ip address 192.168.59.230 255.255.255.0
ip routing
interface vlan 10
name "VLAN10"
routing
ip address  192.168.0.230  255.255.255.0
ip netdirbcast
ip irdp
ip irdp address 255.255.255.255
no ip proxy-arp
ip mtu 1492
exit
interface vlan 20
name "VLAN20"
routing
ip address  192.168.1.230  255.255.255.0
ip netdirbcast
ip irdp
ip irdp address 255.255.255.255
no ip proxy-arp
ip mtu 1492
exit
username "administrator" password ec1776b4be44c51109a86021cc8d6c50 level 15 encr
ypted
!
interface ethernet 1/g1
switchport mode trunk
switchport trunk allowed vlan add 10,20
switchport trunk allowed vlan remove 1
exit

!
interface ethernet 1/g11
switchport access vlan 10
exit
exit