Catalyst 2960 to Dell PowerConnect 6224 VLANs - Are Two IP addresses needed?

[Roland.Corbet]

We have configured a VLAN trunk between a Catalyst 2960 and Dell PowerConnect 6224.  This works fine, and we can route between VLANs etc.

The PowerConnect 6224 is providing L3 routing functionality, and the default gateway for the subnet - e.g. 192.168.10.1  is assigned to the rotuer interface for the VLAN in question on the 6224.

When defining the same VLAN on the Catalyst 2960 using Cisco Network Assistant we are forced to enter an IP address for the VLAN.  In order for this to work correctly, it appears that we need to set a differnet IP address for the VLAN - e.g. 192.168.10.2 (i.e. so that the IP address that exists on the Catalyst does not conflict with the IP on the router interface on the PowerConnect 6224).

Is the assigning of the IP address on the Catalyst absolutely necessary?  If we were to configure via the command line would there be an option to define the VLAN without an IP address?

Thank you for your help.

Kind regards,

Roland

[Jerry Ye · Accepted solution]

I am assuming you mean assigning IP address in the interface VLAN command. Since the 2960 is a L2 only switch, assigning IP address to a VLAN is required if you want to manage the switch remotely (telnet/ssh/http - CNA) via your management VLAN. For L2 only VLAN's, you don't need to define any interface VLAN, hence, you don't need to provide an IP address.

Regards,

jerry

[Roland.Corbet]

Hi Jerry,

Thank you for your reply.  Your assumption was correct.  I now understand what that particular command does now - and that the purpose of the interface on the VLAN is to be able to manage the switch on the VLAN, rather than act as the router interface as on the 6224s.

The Cisco Network Assistant interface didn't provide a method to remove the IP address from the VLAN once it has been defined (in error) and it kept reappearing even after the VLAN was deleted and recreted.  We've now edited the config via the command line to remove the IP added in error and everythign is fine.

Thank you for your help.

Kind regards,

Roland