VTP Mode.....

[rajput001]

Hi,

I have got a new project from my line manager for VTP mode:

What my manager wants is to deply the VTP mode on number of Lan switches .

Can some one please tell me what information i required for the VTP mode and any book or link that focus on VTP project will be very helpful.

Thanks ..

[cadet alain]

Hi,

take a look here: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst3560/software/release/12.2_58_se/configuration/guide/swvtp.html

Regards.

Alain

[rajput001]

Thanks for your response ,

Can you please also tell me what information i required before starting this project.

[JohnTylerPearce]

It sounds like your manager wants you to  configure FTP on all your switches. Here are some important highlights to remember.

1) All switches first start out at VTP Servers, you usually have to manually configure the switches to be VTP clients

2) In VTP Server mode, you can configure vlans on the switch.

3) In VTP Client mode, you cannot configure vlans on the switch, they are propagated from the VTP Server.

4) From correct propagation, all switches need to be in the same VTP domain, you can configure this by using the

    following command 'vtp domain .

5. Each time you configure a vlan on the VTP Server it will increment the VTP configuration Register Number, which is the current version number of the VTP Database.

6. Remember to look at any switch before you connect it to your live network, to make sure it doesn't have a higher VTP

configuration register number, if it does, and it only include certain vlans, you could take down your whole network by accident, that's why I like using transparent mode personally, or you could just configure VTP, then allow vlans to propagate and turn to transparent.

7. You can only setup vtp pruning, which will prune vlans from trunks between switches that do not have any ports configured for those specific vlans. If SWA has vlans 10,20,30, and 40, but no ports specificly in vlan 40, then vlan 40 will be pruned from the trunk, because there is no sence of vlan 40 broadcast traffic to go over that trunk it there are no ports on SWA assigned to VLAN 40. This is all configurable btw.

8. You can also use VTP Password by using the 'vtp password You will need the same password configured on each and e very switch throughout your VTP domain.

Those are some quick highlights for you.

[rajput001]

Hi John ,

Thanks for your detailed answer,

Can you also tell me when i manually configured the VTP server to VTP client does it cause any outage on the network . As i have to configure the VTP mode on live network .

Thanks.

[JohnTylerPearce]

Well that depends on how your vlans are layed out on your switched network. Obviously you would know that better than me.  If you are going to have lets say one VTP Server and the rest as clients, most likely, before you set the other switches as clients, they're going to be VTP Server, you can verify this by "show vtp status'. This means that all switches are most likely up to date anyway. Now, the VTP information is not stored in nvram, it's stored in RAM just for your information. But you shouldn't have any issues, unless you have a transparent switch inbetween some other switches, which will also forward vtp advertisements as long as it's running vtp v2.

[glen.grant]

  Choose bigger core switches  as the servers for vtp .  Also have 2 vtp servers and the rest should be clients .