C3560G and C2960 VLAN Tagging

[Greg Wrobel]

Hi,

I got one C3560G and 13 C2960, I wondered if anyone could tell me if I can setup vlan tagging on ports, so that if phone or computer is configured to be member of vlan 3 the port will make it self member of that vlan.

I will have 3 vlans beside the default and I want users to be just able to plug their stuff anywhere and it will join the right VLAN.

Please let me know if this is possible without RADIUS server, and how to do it.

Thanx!

[jonathanaxford · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You will need some sort of external service/server to achieve this. The switches you have do not natively have the ability to dynamically assign ports to vlans.

Cisco used to have a system called VMPS which would so this without a radius server, but it is EOS now as far as I know.

Hope this helps

Jonathan

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[Peter Paluch · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Jonathan is correct - what you are trying to do is basically assign devices to VLANs according to their MAC address. That can be done only using an external mapping service. The RADIUS would be probably the most correct way to go because it is standardized and open. Another possibility is to use the VMPS service (VLAN Membership Policy Server) which is somewhat similar to RADIUS but only maps MAC addresses to appropriate VLANs. The VMPS is a proprietary Cisco solution and may not be supported on your switches anymore (you would have to consult the Configuration Guide for your particular switch and IOS version). Importantly, the FreeRADIUS software supports both RADIUS and VMPS server functionality.

In any case, an external server is needed.

Best regards,

Peter

[jonathanaxford · Accepted solution]

Hi All,

VMPS is an option, but it is only supported on CatOS and I think its 4000 series switches and above.... I've run it on a Cat 6513 before.

Another option is to investigate a piece of software called FreeNAC.

www.freenac.org

It's basically an open source VMPS server - it uses a MySQL database to keep a record of MAC Addresses and VLANs and then listens for the Cisco VQP requests and responds with the correct VLAN. It can be a bit of a pain to get working, but as long as you have a machine to run it on, it works a treat with something like Ubuntu Linux, so you have yourself a free solution.

Otherwise, as Peter says, Free RADIUS is an option.

Cheers

Jonathan

[Greg Wrobel]

Thanks for help, looks like too much work for the size and complexity of network I'm working with. I will stick to static assignment.