John wrote:
Now for what version of the 2900 you have I do not know. But it seems the info on Ciscos site is kind of misleading in places. There is some documentation that says it works and some say you have to have the add on modules.
Your best bet if your not comfortable with the IOS command line is to use the Web Interface or the Cisco Works Manager Interface. I say this because I have really no way of knowing your experiance on this. I wouln't do this on a live production switch.
Trunking has to do with carrying multiple tagged vlans on one port - and the 2900xl with a 12.x IOS should do that in either ISL (cisco) or dot1q mode. But I thought we were grouping ports instead. You should be able to do both, but the interfaces in the same port group would have to have the same trunk encapsulation set. There is a separate 'vlan database' command on those switches where you have to add the vlan numbers that you want a trunk to carry - and it doesn't get saved in the visible config file. If you have 'switchport access vlan nnn' on any interface that number goes in the vlan database automatically but you just want the trunk ports to pass some other vlans through you have to add them explicitly.
' Ok, if I am reading your reply right VLAN configs are so to say saved in the switch instead of the config file correct? So a config file never contains the VLAN info. Just wondering any way to copy or backup the VLAN Database? There has to be shouldn't. Been 4 years or more since I've touched one. Guess I need to get the newest emulator software Cisco has.
Actually it is more complicated that that - the switches have a vtp master/slave concept to learn vlans but I've always turned it off because the switch with the latest change becomes the master so if someone swaps a switch from the lab into production it would probably break everything in sight. As far as backing it up goes, I just keep a text file that goes: vlan database vlan nnn vlan nnn etc. exit to paste into a new or moved switch. But I think the new models do something different.