EDS-510A Series User’s Manual
Featured Functions
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VLANs: Tagged and Untagged Membership
The EDS-510A supports 802.1Q VLAN tagging, a system that allows traffic for multiple VLANs
to be carried on a single physical (backbone, trunk) link. When setting up VLANs you need to
understand when to use untagged and tagged membership of VLANs. Simply put, if a port is on a
single VLAN it can be an untagged member, but if the port needs to be a member of multiple
VLANs, tagged membership must be defined.
A typical host (e.g., clients) will be untagged members of one VLAN, defined as “Access Port” in
the EDS-510A, while inter-switch connections will be tagged members of all VLANs, defined as
“Trunk Port” in the EDS-510A.
The IEEE Std 802.1Q-1998 defines how VLANs operate within an open packet-switched network.
An 802.1Q compliant packet carries additional information that allows a switch to determine
which VLAN the port belongs. If a frame is carrying the additional information, it is known as a
tagged
frame.
To carry multiple VLANs across a single physical (backbone, trunk) link, each packet must be
tagged with a VLAN identifier so that the switches can identify which packets belong to which
VLAN. To communicate between VLANs, a router must be used.
The EDS-510A supports two types of VLAN port settings:
Access Port:
The port connects to a single device that is not tagged. The user must define the
default port PVID that determines to which VLAN the device belongs. Once the ingress
packet of this Access Port egresses to another Trunk Port (the port needs all packets to carry
tag information), the EDS-510A will insert this PVID into this packet to help the next 802.1Q
VLAN switch recognize it.
Trunk Port:
The port connects to a LAN that consists of untagged devices/tagged devices
and/or switches and hubs. In general, the traffic of the Trunk Port must have a Tag. Users can
also assign PVID to a Trunk Port. The untagged packet on the Trunk Port will be assigned the
port default PVID as its VID.
The following section illustrates how to use these ports to set up different applications.