Configuring a 3500 switch as a hub

[wandascott]

Hi,

I just want to use a 3500 switch as a simple hub. Is this possible, and more importantly, is it simple to set up?

Thanks,

Wanda

[amit-singh]

Yes, you can set the switch as hub by puting all the ports in a single Vlan and disabling spanning tree globally on the switch.

Go to global config mode and use comand " no spanning-tree " or " no spanning-tree vlan 1 "

HTH,

-amit singh

[Prashanth Krishnappa]

Disabling STP and having all ports in one VLAN will not disable MAC learning. There is no way to disable MAC learning on 3500XL switches.

[wandascott]

Thanks very much for this reply. Forgive my ignorance, but is this significant?

Thanks,

Wanda

[Prashanth Krishnappa]

Yes.. In a hub every port would see all the traffic since there is no concept of maintaining a MAC address table and hence traffic is flooded.

In a switch, since it maintains a MAC address table, all unicast traffic would be only between 2 ports in question. Broadcast/multicast would be still be seen by other ports in the VLAN.

[amit-singh]

Prashanth,

I guess then there is no way for disabling the mac-address learning. I tried to look at the mac-address table aging option but still the least value supported is 10 seconds. So in any case 3500 XL's cannot be configured to disable the mac-address learning.

regards,

-amit singh

[amit-singh]

Yes, you can set the switch as hub by puting all the ports in a single Vlan i.e the default vlan "Vlan 1" and disabling spanning tree globally on the switch.

Go to global config mode and use comand " no spanning-tree " or " no spanning-tree vlan 1 "

HTH,

-amit singh