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Catalyst 2960 Switch SoftwareConfiguration Guide
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Chapter12 Configuring VLANs
Configuring VLAN Trunks
For more details about the show command options and explanations of output fields, see the command
reference for this release.
Configuring VLAN Trunks
These sections contain this conceptual information:
Trunking Overview, page 12-14
Default Layer 2 Ethernet Interface VLAN Configuration, page 12-16
Configuring an Ethernet Interface as a Trunk Port, page 12-16
Configuring Trunk Ports for Load Sharing, page 12-20

Trunking Overview

A trunk is a point-to-point link between one or more Ethernet switch interfaces and another networking device
such as a router or a switch. Ethernet trunks carry the traffic of multiple VLANs over a single link, and you
can extend the VLANs across an entire network. The Catalyst 2960 switch supports IEEE 802.1Q
encapsulation.
You can configure a trunk on a single Ethernet interface or on an EtherChannel bundl e. For more
information about EtherChannel, see Chapter 30, “Configuring EtherChannels. ”
Ethernet trunk interfaces support different trunking modes (see Ta ble 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-P oint
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.
show interfaces [vlan
vlan-id]
Privileged EXEC Display characteristics for all interfaces or for
the specified VLAN configured on the switch.
show vlan [id vlan-id] Privileged EXEC Display parameters for all VLANs or the
specified VLAN on the switch.
Table12-3 VLAN Monitoring Commands (continued)
Command Command Mode Purpose