How are the VLANs Data stored in the VTP Domain

[Islam Nadim]

Hello All,

I'm confused a bit in the VTP Domains.

Now, I have 3 Switches in the network, with the modes below:

Switch	Mode
Switch A	Server
Switch B	Transparent
Switch C	Client

Now, I know that the Server and Transparent stores the VLANs in a VLAN.dat file in the NVRAM. What about the client? Does it keep the VLANs in the RAM and when rebooted starts getting the VLANs again from the Server?

Best Regards,

Islam M. Nadim.

[Peter Paluch · Accepted solution]

Hi,

With all recent IOS versions, switches always keep the VLAN database stored in the vlan.dat, regardless of their VTP mode (server, client, or transparent). Some old sources say that clients did not maintain their own vlan.dat file and kept the VLAN database in RAM only. This may have been the case with CatOS and/or very old IOSes, but it is not true anymore.

Best regards,

Peter