Connecting VLANs via Catalyst 3560

vatson

Thanks a lot for all the comments, and sorry for not replying sooner. I've been overwhelmed with other, non-pfSense-related issues. I really appreciate all your advice, but unfortunately I can't try it out until maybe Sunday. I'll certainly let you know how it goes.

The most significant thing that I seem to be missing is the native-VLAN setting.

I have nonegotiate set on all the trunk ports. My thinking with this was that I really don't want the switch to "negotiate" and start carryng some VLANs across the trunks that I didn't intend. Maybe I'm missing the point here.

BTW, I only have this one Catalyst in my network, all the other equipment connecting to it is non-Cisco.

I totally agree with you regarding not using VLAN 1, and if I'd start creating my network today I would avoid it. Unfortunately I wasn't aware of this practice many years ago when I first implemented VLANs, and now migrating away from VLAN 1 would mean reconfiguring dozens of switches…

rkelleyrtp

No problem. Let us know how it goes.

BTW - I would make sure the VLAN IDs match between your pfSense box and your Cisco switch. In your original email, you mentioned:

pfSense CISCO
–------- --------
vlan0 --> VLAN1
vlan1 --> VLAN13
vlan2 --> VLAN16

I would make sure the VLAN IDs match (like this:)

pfSense CISCO
–------- --------
vlan1 --> VLAN1
vlan13 --> VLAN13
vlan16 --> VLAN16

This way, you probably won't run into the native vlan problem…

jimp

@rkelleyrtp:

No problem. Let us know how it goes.

BTW - I would make sure the VLAN IDs match between your pfSense box and your Cisco switch. In your original email, you mentioned:

pfSense CISCO
–------- --------
vlan0 --> VLAN1
vlan1 --> VLAN13
vlan2 --> VLAN16

That is just how pfSense numbers them in 1.2.x. The first one is 0, next is 1, etc, etc. In pfSense 2 they are tagged with the vlan id, but not in 1.2.x. That's fine, as long as their VLAN IDs are set right.

vatson

Yes, in my understanding also the numbers behind interface name are not the same thing as VLAN tags. VLAN tags appear separately in ifconfig, as seen below:

vlan0: flags=8843 <up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
options=3 <rxcsum,txcsum>ether 00:0a:e4:01:38:f0
inet6 fe80::20a:e4ff:fe01:38f0%vlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x7
inet 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <half-duplex>)
status: active
vlan: 1 parent interface: em0
vlan1: flags=8843 <up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
options=3 <rxcsum,txcsum>ether 00:0a:e4:01:38:f0
inet6 fe80::20a:e4ff:fe01:38f0%vlan1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x8
inet 192.168.14.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.14.255
media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <half-duplex>)
status: active
vlan: 13 parent interface: em0
vlan2: flags=8843 <up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
options=3 <rxcsum,txcsum>ether 00:0a:e4:01:38:f0
inet6 fe80::20a:e4ff:fe01:38f0%vlan2 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x9
inet 192.168.6.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.6.255
media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <half-duplex>)
status: active
vlan: 16 parent interface: em0</half-duplex></rxcsum,txcsum></up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast></half-duplex></rxcsum,txcsum></up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast></half-duplex></rxcsum,txcsum></up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>

jimp

Yeah those look fine.

vatson

I did some tests, but without success…

First I tried this, on top of my existing setup:

config t
int gi0/22
switchport access vlan 1

This seemed to have no noticeable effect on the config. Also, when connecting pfSense to the port, things still didn't work

'switchport native-vlan' doesn't seem to be an accepted command.

Then I reduced the port config to just:

switchport mode trunk
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q

Still no joy…

Then I tried this

switchport mode access
switchport access vlan 1
switchport mode trunk
swithcport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,3,16

No change…

I also tried fixing the speed to 100FD, which also didn't help, so I changed back to auto.

This is the output of "sh int gi0/22" when pfSense is connected:

GigabitEthernet0/22 is up, line protocol is up (connected)
  Hardware is Gigabit Ethernet, address is 0025.8306.4096 (bia 0025.8306.4096)
  MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1000000 Kbit, DLY 10 usec,
     reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255
  Encapsulation ARPA, loopback not set
  Keepalive set (10 sec)
  Full-duplex, 1000Mb/s, media type is 10/100/1000BaseTX
  input flow-control is off, output flow-control is unsupported
  ARP type: ARPA, ARP Timeout 04:00:00
  Last input never, output 00:00:00, output hang never
  Last clearing of "show interface" counters never
  Input queue: 0/75/0/0 (size/max/drops/flushes); Total output drops: 0
  Queueing strategy: fifo
  Output queue: 0/40 (size/max)
  5 minute input rate 326000 bits/sec, 44 packets/sec
  5 minute output rate 37000 bits/sec, 47 packets/sec
     41587 packets input, 46170281 bytes, 0 no buffer
     Received 24 broadcasts (0 multicasts)
     37 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles
     98 input errors, 61 CRC, 0 frame, 0 overrun, 0 ignored
     0 watchdog, 8 multicast, 0 pause input
     0 input packets with dribble condition detected
     62462 packets output, 8175017 bytes, 0 underruns
     0 output errors, 0 collisions, 1 interface resets
     0 babbles, 0 late collision, 0 deferred
     0 lost carrier, 0 no carrier, 0 PAUSE output
     0 output buffer failures, 0 output buffers swapped out

And the output of "sh int trunk" (I removed other ports for brevity):

Port        Mode         Encapsulation  Status        Native vlan
Gi0/22      on           802.1q         trunking      1

Port        Vlans allowed on trunk
Gi0/22      1,13,16

Port        Vlans allowed and active in management domain
Gi0/22      1,13,16

Port        Vlans in spanning tree forwarding state and not pruned
Gi0/22      1,13,16

I'm starting to suspect the issue may not be in VLAN tagging but something else entirely… But what might it be?

rkelleyrtp

I was mistaken before about the native vlan command. Use this: "switchport trunk native vlan <xxx>". But, since you are trunking VLAN 1, that should be the native vlan.

Can you give me the output of "sh run | int gig 0/22" ?</xxx>

vatson

Current configuration : 137 bytes
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/22
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,13,16
switchport mode trunk
end

rkelleyrtp

What kind of NIC are you using in your pfSense box? I have seen other with NICs that have hardware VLAN support causing similar issues. Disabling the hardware VLAN support fixed the problem.

Aside from that, I would do the following:

Disable VLANs all together (conf t ; no switchport trunk ; no switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,13,16; no switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q ; no switchport trunk)
Enable the port for static VLAN of 13 (conf t ; switchport host ; switchport access vlan 13)
Ping something in the 13 subnet (assuming you gave pfSense "em0" and ip address in vlan 13)

If this works, the pfSense box has good connectivity to your switch and network. Next:
–--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enable VLANs 13 and 16 (conf t ; no switchport host ; no switchport access vlan 13 ; switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q ; switchport trunk; switchport trunk allowed vlan 13,16)
Set pfSense with the corresponding VLAN 13 and 16 IP addresses
Ping something in both VLANs

Let me know what you find.

BTW - I specifically left out VLAN1 in the second test case.

vatson

Well, I finally got it working.

What I needed to do was set the native VLAN on the trunk port to something other than one of the VLANs which I actually want to connect to pfSense. So I set

conf t
int gi0/22
switchport trunk native vlan 2

and everything is working now. VLAN 2 is not actually used anymore on our network, so I'll probably keep it as a "ghost native vlan" for the pfSense uplink port.

For future reference, this is my final working port config, for linking VLANs 1, 13 and 16 to pfSense:

interface GigabitEthernet0/22
 switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
 switchport trunk native vlan 2
 switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,13,16
 switchport mode trunk
end

valnar

@vatson:

VLAN 2 is not actually used anymore on our network, so I'll probably keep it as a "ghost native vlan" for the pfSense uplink port.

Interesting. I do that for all my Cisco switches as a matter of best practice, but I've never seen it required.