Layer 2 switch vlan interface

[cisco8887]

Hi guys,

I have a questions on vlan interfaces which I pretty much know the answer but need assurance,

why can you have multiple vlan interfaces on 2960 switch which is a layer 2 switch ? it can't do any routing so what is the point ?

In old switches you were only allowed to have one vlan interface for management only but I have worked on few 2960 switches that have many interfaces in vlan and I am confused why .

Many thanks

[Joseph W. Doherty]

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Posting

Perhaps because some 2960s support very limited routing.

[cisco8887]

I can't see ip routing there so I don't think it does.

[Mark Malone · Accepted solution]

actually certain 2960s do support routing , ip lite images with stub eigrp and one ospf process limited to around 200 routes , pretty suere 2960xrs only come with L3 image , basic static routing etc as well

The Cisco hardware routing architecture delivers extremely high-performance IP routing in the Cisco Catalyst 2960-XR IP-Lite Switches:

• IP unicast routing protocols (Static, Routing Information Protocol Version 1 [RIPv1], and RIPv2, RIPng are supported for small-network routing applications.

• Advanced IP unicast routing protocols (OSPF for Routed Access) are supported for load balancing and constructing scalable LANs. IPv6 routing (OSPFv3) is supported in hardware for maximum performance.

• Equal-cost routing facilitates Layer 3 load balancing and redundancy across the stack.

• Policy-based routing (PBR) allows superior control by facilitating flow redirection regardless of the routing protocol configured.

• Hot Standby Routing Protocol (HSRP) and Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) provides dynamic load balancing and failover for routed links.

• Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) for IP multicast is supported, including PIM sparse mode (PIM-SM), PIM dense mode (PIM-DM), PIM sparse-dense mode and Source Specific Multicast (SSM).

[Iulian Vaideanu]

It does, since IOS Release 12.2(55)SE:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst2960/software/release/12-2_58_se/configuration/guide/2960scg/swsdm.html

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst2960/software/release/12-2_58_se/configuration/guide/2960scg/swipstatrout.html