Archive for October 16th, 2007

16
Oct

Adding a Cisco switch to a VTP domain

Adding a switch to a VTP domain is fairly easy to do, but done incorrectly, can bring down a whole network. Fortunatly I have not had this happen to me, but I have heard horror stories. There are a few simple steps to take to make sure everything stays running smoothly.

The very first step to complete as soon as you are ready to put a new switch on a network and join it to the domain, is to make sure that the vtp mode is set to transparent. Setting the mode to transparent ensures that the “Configuration Revision” is set to 0. If the switch has been used in a lab and has vlans configured and a configuration revision that is higher than the domain server, even if the switch being added is in client mode, it will overwrite the server and propagate all of it’s vlans across the network.

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16
Oct

Configuring a VTP domain on Cisco switches

VTP domains allow you to manage all of your vlans from a central switch. This can be a great tool if you are dealing with a large number of vlans spread out over multiple switches. There are a couple of issues that you must be careful of when you implement a vtp domain, which I will go over shortly.

The first requirement is to make sure that your trunks between switches are up and working.

Continue reading ‘Configuring a VTP domain on Cisco switches’