VTP password configuration

[Alan Boyd]

Hi,

I intend to configure VTP security on our LAN (Catalyst 6500s) using vtp password blah. I'm happy with the configuration itself, however I cannot find anything defnitive that would explain the impact of enabling this on a live network e.g.:

- if I configure a VTP password on one member of the VTP domain, will this simply stop updating the VLAN database until its neighbours are similarly configured?

- or... will having some members in the VTP domain configured with a password and some without confuse the shared VLAN database?

My basic requirement is to find out how much this configuration change would affect network service in order that I can give the appropriate notification to our user community.

Thanks

[Peter Paluch · Accepted solution]

Hello Alan,

You can gradually deploy the VTP password in your VTP domain. Logically, the VTP domain becomes partitioned until all devices are configured with the identical password. Devices that are configured with the VTP password will not exchange any VTP information with devices that do not yet have their VTP password set but if you do not make any modifications to the VLAN (or other VTP-maintained) database during the password deployment phase then you should not experience any outages or problems.

VTP Pruning is not affected by configured VTP password and will work regardless of configured password.

Best regards,

Peter

[Alan Boyd]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the speedy reply - you've confirmed what I suspected (hoped!), it's good to get another view. I'll be able to schedule this work accordingly now.

Thanks again