Alcatel-Lucent 9000, 6800, 6850 user manual 802.1Q 2005 Mstp, 802.1W Rstp Default

Software Supported

Feature	Platform	Software Package
Text File Configuration	all	base
User Definable Loopback Interface	all	base
VLANs	all	base
VRRP	all	base
Web-Based Management (WebView)	all	base

Feature Descriptions

802.1Q

Alcatel-Lucent’s 802.1Q is an IEEE standard for sending frames through the network tagged with VLAN identification. 802.1Q tagging is the IEEE version of VLANs. It is a method of segregating areas of a network into distinct VLANs. By attaching a label, or tag, to a packet, it can be identified as being from a specific area or identified as being destined for a specific area.

When a port is enabled to accept tagged traffic, by default both 802.1Q tagged and untagged traffic is automatically accepted on the port. Configuring the port to accept only tagged traffic is also supported.

802.1Q 2005 (MSTP)

802.1Q 2005 (Q2005) is a new version of Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP) that is a combination of the 802.1D 2004 and 802.1S protocols. This implementation of Q2005 also includes improvements to edge port configuration and provides administrative control to restrict port role assignment and the propa- gation of topology change information through bridge ports.

The 6.1.3.R01 release provides support for this feature on the OmniSwitch 6800 Series, OmniSwitch 6850 Series, and OmniSwitch 9000 Series.

802.1W (RSTP) Default

The Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) is now the default Spanning Tree protocol for the OmniSwitch 6800/6850/9000 regardless of which mode (flat or 1x1) is active.

802.1x Device Classification (Access Guardian)

In addition to the authentication and VLAN classification of 802.1x clients (supplicants), this implementa- tion of 802.1x secure port access extends this type of functionality to non-802.1x clients (non-suppli- cants). To this end device classification policies are introduced to handle both supplicant and non- supplicant access to 802.1x ports.

Supplicant policies use 802.1x authentication via a remote RADIUS server and provide alternative meth- ods for classifying supplicants if the authentication process either fails or does not return a VLAN ID.

Non-supplicant policies use MAC authentication via a remote RADIUS server or can bypass authentica- tion and only allow strict assignment to specific VLANs. MAC authentication verifies the source MAC address of a non-supplicant device via a remote RADIUS server. Similar to 802.1x authentication, the switch sends RADIUS frames to the server with the source MAC address embedded in the username and password attributes.

Device Classification is supported on the OmniSwitch 6800 Series and OmniSwitch 6850 Series. The 6.1.3.R01 release provides support for this feature on the OmniSwitch 9000 Series.

OmniSwitch 6800/6850/9000—Release 6.1.3.R01 page 15