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Catalyst 3560 Switch Software Configuration Guide
78-16156-01
Chapter 12 Configuring VLANs
Configuring VLAN Trunks
Figure 12-2 Switches in an ISL Trunking Environment
You can configure a trunk on a single Ethernet interface or on an EtherChannel bundle. For more
information about EtherChannel, see
Chapter 29, “Configuring EtherChannels.”
Ethernet trunk interfaces support different trunking modes (see
Table 12-4
). You can set an interface as
trunking or nontrunking or to negotiate trunking with the neighboring interface. To autonegotiate
trunking, the interfaces must be in the same VTP domain.
Trunk negotiation is managed by the Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP), which is a Point-to-Point
Protocol. However, some internetworking devices might forward DTP frames improperly, which could
cause misconfigurations.
To avoid this, you should configure interfaces connected to devices that do not support DTP to not
forward DTP frames, that is, to turn off DTP.
•
If you do not intend to trunk across those links, use the switchport mode access interface
configuration command to disable trunking.
•
To enable trunking to a device that does not support DTP, use the switchport mode trunk and
switchport nonegotiate interface configuration commands to cause the interface to become a trunk
but to not generate DTP frames. Use the switchport trunk encapsulation isl or switchport trunk
encapsulation dot1q interface to select the encapsulation type on the trunk port.
You can also specify on DTP interfaces whether the trunk uses ISL or 802.1Q encapsulation or if the
encapsulation type is autonegotiated. The DTP supports autonegotiation of both ISL and 802.1Q trunks.
Catalyst 6500 series
switch
Switch
Switch
Switch
Switch
VLAN2
VLAN3
VLAN1
VLAN1
VLAN2
VLAN3
ISL
trunk
ISL
trunk
ISL
trunk
ISL
trunk
45828
Table 12-4 Layer 2 Interface Modes
Mode
Function
switchport mode access
Puts the interface (access port) into permanent nontrunking mode and negotiates to
convert the link into a nontrunk link. The interface becomes a nontrunk interface
regardless of whether or not the neighboring interface is a trunk interface.
switchport mode dynamic auto
Makes the interface able to convert the link to a trunk link. The interface becomes a trunk
interface if the neighboring interface is set to trunk or desirable mode. The default
switchport mode for all Ethernet interfaces is dynamic auto.