Cisco Systems IE 2000 System Name and Prompt, MAC Address Table

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Cisco IE 2000 Switch Software Configuration Guide
OL-25866-01
Chapter 7 Performing Switch Administration
Information About Performing Switch Administration
System Name and Prompt
You configure the system name on the switch to identify it. By default, the system name and prompt are
Switch.
If you have not configured a system prompt, the first 20 character s of the system name are used as the
system prompt. A greater-than symbol [>] is appended. The prompt is updated whenever the system
name changes.
MAC Address Table
The MAC address table contains address information that the switch uses to forward traffic between
ports. All MAC addresses in the address table are associated with one or more ports. The address table
includes these types of addresses:
• Dynamic address—A source MAC address that the switch learns and then ages when it is not in use.
• Static address—A manually entered unicast address that does not age and that is not lost when the
switch resets.
The address table lists the destination MAC address, the assoc iated VLAN ID, and port number
associated with the address and the type ( static or dynamic).
Address Table
With multiple MAC addresses supported on all ports, you can connect any port on the switch to
individual workstations, repeaters, switches, routers, or other network devices. The switch provides
dynamic addressing by learning the source address of packets it receives on each port and adding the
address and its associated port number to the address table. As stations are added or removed from the
network, the switch updates the address table, adding new dynamic addresses and aging out those that
are not in use.
The aging interval is globally configured. However, the switch maintains an address table for each
VLAN, and STP can accelerate the aging interval on a per-VLAN basis.
The switch sends packets between any combination of ports, based on the destination address of the
received packet. Using the MAC address table, the switch forwards the packet only to the port associated
with the destination address. If the destination address is on the port that sent the packet, the packet is
filtered and not forwarded. The switch always uses the store-and-forward method: complete packets are
stored and checked for errors before transmission.
MAC Addresses and VLANs
All addresses are associated with a VLAN. An address can exist in more than one VLAN and have
different destinations in each. Unicast addresses, for example, could be forwarded to port 1 in VLAN 1
and ports 9, 10, and 1 in VLAN 5.
Each VLAN maintains its own logical address table. A known address i n one VLAN is unknown in
another until it is learned or statically associated with a port in the other VLAN.