can we connect two switches, when using access mode ?

[qiblatain1400]

Dear All,

Please calrify me regarding the access mode or access port concept.I have two questions

Q1) Can we connect two switches, having only single VLAN25 on both the switches, while all ports on both switches are access ports?

Description regarding Q 1)    I have two cisco 2950 Switches. I have configured VLAN25 on both the switches. All ports on both the switches are in access mode. I have a crossover cable to connect both the switches. I know that access mode is only for one VLAN. But I am not sure that for access ports I can only use one native VLAN (VLAN1) OR we can use another VLAN like VLAN25 as well..

Q2) If your answer is " Yes " regarding my first question (Q 1), then can I connect two switches having two vlans, VLAN25 & VLAN30 on both the switches using two crossover cables, one for VLAN25 & one for VLAN30, while all ports on both switches are access ports ?

If anyone has not understood my questions, I can describe more.

Waiting for the response..............

Thanks...............................

[cadet alain · Accepted solution]

Hi,

The answers to both questions are Yes.

Regards.

Alain.

[ranraju · Accepted solution]

Yes, you can connect two switches with access ports, and you just need to say "switchport mode access" and "switchport access vlan ID" on the ports that you would connect between the switches..

Regards,

ranraju

[sdheer]

Hi Naveed,

Below are the answer to your questions:

Ans1:

If you have twp 2960 switches you can connect them by configuring them as access port by using command " switchport moode acess " followed by command  " switchport access vlan 25" .This will place the ports in vlan 25.

Now the native vlan on both ends will be by default vlan 1.In case you want to change the native vlan on the connected ports it  would be recommended that you change it on both ends.That is to prevent native vlan mismatch  because the native vlan packets go untagged.

Ans2:

you can connect two switches having vlan 25 and vlan 30 ,but as a recommendation make the link connecting between them as trunk link so that traffic for both the vlans can pass over it.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Swati

Please rate helpful posts

[ranraju]

here swati's suggestions are absolutely correct..

But since you are configuring an access port, the switches need not have to fight over for the native vlan, as its not a trunk at all so you wouldnt face a native vlan issue on these access ports. The concept behind the native vlan on the trunk would be just to tell the switch to send packets for that vlan without tagging them...

And from the design perspective if you are using 2 separate ports for 2 different vlans i guess you get more bandwidth than making a single link trunk between the switches and allowing both the vlans on that trunk link...

Hope this helps...

Regards,

ranraju

[kapathak]

Q1) Can we connect two switches, having only single VLAN25 on both the switches, while all ports on both switches are access ports?

Description regarding Q 1)    I have two cisco 2950 Switches. I have configured VLAN25 on both the  switches. All ports on both the switches are in access mode. I have a  crossover cable to connect both the switches. I know that access mode is  only for one VLAN. But I am not sure that for access ports I can only  use one native VLAN (VLAN1) OR we can use another VLAN like VLAN25 as  well..

Q2) If  your answer is " Yes " regarding my first question (Q 1), then can I  connect two switches having two vlans, VLAN25 & VLAN30 on both the  switches using two crossover cables, one for VLAN25 & one for  VLAN30, while all ports on both switches are access ports ?

If anyone has not understood my questions, I can describe more.

A1) The concept of native vlan exists only with dot1q trunking. Access ports don't have to worry about this, the frames sent out of access ports are anyways untagged. If both the switches have only Vlan 25 then yes, you can setup the link between them as an access port in vlan 25. Remember, this will work only if you intend to use Vlan 25 between the two switches.

A2)If you mean to say that each switch will have Vlan 25 and Vlan 30, then in order to enable them to communicate with the other switch , we need to setup the link between them as trunks. This is to allow traffic from vlan 25 and Vlan 30 to traverse across the link. Now, in this case, assuming you are using dot1q trunks in between the switch, please make sure that the native vlan on both ends is the same.

Hope this answers your queries.

If anything has been missed out, please feel free to state.

If your query has been resolved, please mark the thread as resolved :-)