Why vlans need ip address

This means that the switches are creating 4 separate trees, each with its own parameters, status, calculations, etc. Imagine if you had several hundred VLANs! This is certainly not ideal. Unfortunately, this Cisco device does not support MST. Once the priorities have been set, check the output of the spanning tree status command.

Which is the root bridge for each VLAN? We originally configured the switches so that we were using VLAN 1 to manage them and provide end user access for the whole campus!

And the IPv4 address block we have used up to now was the entire We cannot simply address the VLANs we created using a subnet of Note: If doing this on a live network, removing the IP addressing and shutting down VLAN 1 will remove all Internet connectivity for all users connected to the switches - so this activity is best done when the network is unused, usually early in the mornings or at weekend, depending on when the campus is quietest. It creates separate broadcast domains for the network.

View solution in original post. They are not on the same subnet if they are in different VLANs, they can use the same IP range, but it would be the same as having two switches and them not being connected and using the same IP range. It might sound like a stupid question, however I am confused, will the devices in different vlan will be able to communicate with each other without any inter vlan routing.

For different VLANs to communicate there has to be routing, you can either do it with intervlan routing on the switch or you can use a separate router. Browse Community. Networking General. Dell Community : Networking : Networking General : vlan without assigning ip address. Think of a company that might have different VLANs Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top.

Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Ask Question. Asked 11 years, 8 months ago. Active 5 years, 5 months ago. Viewed k times. IP address Improve this question. RainDoctor RainDoctor 3, 3 3 gold badges 21 21 silver badges 24 24 bronze badges. What kind of hardware are you talking about? This is part of configuring a vlan on a netgear switch, after enabling routing on the vlan.

Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. David Mackintosh David Mackintosh Dominik Dominik 2, 13 13 silver badges 9 9 bronze badges. VLAN-aware devices tend to be managed devices though, and they usually have IP addresses like David said in the other answer. In a nutshell, VLANs allow a group of Ethernet devices subnet to be physically separated by many Ethernet switches but communicate as if they were all connected to the same physical Ethernet switch.

In the example below, the three VLANs have devices located on separate floors. For the Engineering computers to be on the same network across multiple building floors, VLANs are used to isolate this traffic from marketing and accounting computers.

Devices in different VLANs cannot communicate when only using layer 2 switches. Layer 2 devices only inspect the destination MAC media access control addresses of Ethernet frames. A MAC address is tied to a physical piece of hardware. In other words, a layer 2 switch allows devices in the same VLAN or subnet to communicate. Also, keep in mind, modern Ethernet switches often blur the lines between layer 2 and layer 3 capabilities. What benefits do VLANs have over making it all one large subnet?

A single subnet is simple to understand and implement but creates problems as the network grows.