DES-3550 Layer 2
Fast Ethernet Switch User’s Guide
66
Ingress Filtering
A port on a switch where packets are flowing into the switch and VLAN decisions must be
made is referred to as an
ingress port
. If ingress filtering is enabled for a port, the switch will
examine the VLAN information in the packet header (if present) and decide whether or not to
forward the packet.
If the packet is tagged with VLAN information, the ingress port will first determine if the
ingress port itself is a member of the tagged VLAN. If it is not, the packet will be dropped. If
the ingress port is a member of the 802.1Q VLAN, the switch then determines if the
destination port is a member of the 802.1Q VLAN. If it is not, the packet is dropped. If the
destination port is a member of the 802.1Q VLAN, the packet is forwarded and the destination
port transmits it to its attached network segment.
If the packet is not tagged with VLAN information, the ingress port will tag the packet with
its own PVID as a VID (if the port is a tagging port). The switch then determines if the
destination port is a member of the same VLAN (has the same VID) as the ingress port. If it
does not, the packet is dropped. If it has the same VID, the packet is forwarded and the
destination port transmits it on its attached network segment.
This process is referred to as
ingress filtering
and is used to conserve bandwidth within the
Switch by dropping packets that are not on the same VLAN as the ingress port at the point of
reception
.
This eliminates the subsequent processing of packets that will just be dropped by
the destination port.
Default VLANs
The Switch initially configures one VLAN, VID = 1, called “default.” The factory default
setting assigns all ports on the Switch to the “default.” As new VLANs are configured in Port-
based mode, their respective member ports are removed from the “default.”
Packets cannot cross VLANs. If a member of one VLAN wants to connect to another VLAN,
the link must be through an external router.
Note
: If no VLANs are configured on the Switch, then all packets will be
forwarded to any destination port. Packets with unknown source
addresses will be flooded to all ports. Broadcast and multicast packets will
also be flooded to all ports.
An example is presented below:
VLAN Name
VID
Switch Ports
System (default)
1
5, 6, 7, 8, 21, 22, 23, 24
Engineering
2
9, 10, 11, 12
Marketing
3
13, 14, 15, 16
Finance
4
17, 18, 19, 20
Sales
5
1, 2, 3, 4
Table 6-1. VLAN Example – Assigned Ports