Dell PowerConnect 2724 and VLAN Trunk

The DELL ProCurve 2724 is a decent web managed switch. What I was trying to accomplish was setting up VLANs on my main switch and passing the information to the 2725 through a TRUNK.

A trunk is used so that instead of taking a network cable from one switch’s VLAN and running it to another switch (vlan 1 to vlan 1, vlan2 to vlan2, etc making you use up ports to connect different vlans) you can use one port to hold all the VLAN information. If you didn’t use trunking, then each VLAN that you wanted to communicate between the switches would EACH need a cable running to the VLAN.

VLAN1 is the default VLAN. You cannot receive TAGGED packets to VLAN1. Other VLANs you can receive tagged packets. I wanted to setup 3 VLANs.

VLAN 1 – Ports 1-8
VLAN 2 – Ports 9-17
VLAN 3 – Ports 18-24

First you go into your Dell management web gui and click on VLAN membership. Here you create VLAN 2 and VLAN 3. Next you UNTAG packets on the VLANS for the specific ports, so VLAN1 would have U by ports 1-8. I will be using PORT 1 as the trunk, so for VLAN2 and VLAN3, make sure you specify port 1 as the trunk, and it will show a T which means tagged egress packets. VLAN1 cannot cannot receive tagged packets, so you cannot make port1 on VLAN1 the T, it will remain U which means untag egress packets.

The switch that will be connected to the Dell Powerconnect 2724 is a HP ProCurve. The trunk port on this end is configured to send UNTAGGED packets to VLAN1, and TAGGED packets to VLAN2 and VLAN3. This is very important, or nothing will work.

Now this line of Dell switches are a little different. You created the VLAN you think and specified which ports are associated with which VLAN under the VLAN membership. For some reason, we are NOT done. Click on the VLAN port settings. Here you will need to AGAIN specify which VLAN each port is associated with, by entering in the VLAN # in the PVID.

Thanks for those who submitted and clarified some errors. I would like to give credit.

« Previous Post

Marc
11 Aug, 2008

Thanks for this.

Was looking for a straightforward answer to trunking on the 27xx series and was going to give up when I found your page.

Thanks again, Marc
shank
11 Aug, 2008

Ah, glad I could be of help. They were well priced switches when I bought them, but the VLANing was definitely a questionable feature. Once you get it to work though, you’re pretty good to go. Thanks for checking out the site.
Brian
11 Jan, 2009

Just a question about the Dell powerconnect 27xx series.. the documentation is not clear to me. Can you use this device and create a trunk port? or does it just read vlan tags?

I am looking for a GB capable switch for ‘home’ use to test different QoS/altq with FreeBSD.

From what I can see they do not allow a trunk port; is this true?
shank
30 Jan, 2009

Brian,

You can definitely create a VLAN trunk. I’ve created one as you can see by this port.
Teixeira
28 Feb, 2009

Hey Shank,

Great and helpfull guide, unfortunatly the Dell documentation IMO is not very explanatory but i found here a good detailed explanation and only 1 doubt left.

When u write: “I will be using PORT 1 as the trunk, so for VLAN2 and VLAN3, make sure you specify port 1 as the trunk, and it will show a T” you mean specify port 1 as the trunk but this has to be done in the LAG section? i ask, bc i cannot find another option to explicitly say “port X is a trunk” in the web browser… could u tell me where is this set?

Thank you very much and keep up the good work.

BR,
Teixeira
shank
1 Mar, 2009

Hi Teixeria.

Thanks for the response and glad this site has helped you. I agree, the Dell manual is useless for these PowerConnect switches.

To clarify, under the VLAN membership, you would select your VLAN ID on the drop down box, then assuming we are using port 1 as the trunk, you would TAG port 1. So I did this for both VLAN 2 and VLAN 3. So by showing a T there for port 1 on 2 VLANS (not VLAN1 since you can only show a U untag packets because that is the default VLAN).

Sorry for the misunderstanding, let me know if you have any other questions.
Teixeira
2 Mar, 2009

Hi Shank,

i can’t get it work, but thanks to you i understood better the “tagging” process.

What i have is:
##### VLAN Membership #####
VLAN 1 (default) port 1-14 and 17-24 porta are untagged, they display an U in the

VLAN 13 port 15,16 without T or U just “Not Member” on these ports but have a T in port 24 which is my trunk port to the other switch.

##### VLAN Port Settings #####
Interface: 15 and 16
PVID: 13
Frame Type: Admit All
Ingress Filtering: Enable

the remaining port are all by default in vlan1

my question? should i put port 24 ( trunk port) belonging also to vlan 13? if so, the web interface only let attrib 1 vlan id per port…

Any suggestions?

Thank you very much, once, for helping out.

BR,
Teixeira
shank
2 Mar, 2009

Teixeria,

Yes, it’s kind of confusing with VLAN1 because it is the default VLAN.

And also if port 24 is the trunk port, you already made it part of VLAN13 by having the T present on it. But for VLAN1, you did not specify port 24 as T.

Let me know, i’m eager to help you get this working. I’ll be in front of my unit soon so can try to troubleshoot with it also.
Teixeira
2 Mar, 2009

Hey Shank,

Thanks once more for your availability to help

As 1 image means more than 1000 words
I took the liberty to post the config images here:
Vlan Port Settings: http://imagebin.ca/view/leETew-0.html
Vlan Membership: http://imagebin.ca/view/6rVQXv8X.html

I hope it helps you know how do i have the configuration.
Many thanks.

BR,
Teixeira
shank
2 Mar, 2009

Teixeria,
I noticed that VLAN1 does not have port24 tagged. Please tag and let me know output

shank
Teixeira
2 Mar, 2009

Shank,
I cannot tag the vlan1, bc as is the default vlan, its automatically stays “untagged”.
Another this i noticed is that, in the trunk port ( 24 ) i’m not able to set the PVID like “10,12,13″ its says “PVID must be an Integer between 1 to 4095″ therefore i cannot explicitly say that port 24 ( my trunk ) belongs to vlan 10,12,and 13.

Thanks.

BR,
Teixeira
shank
2 Mar, 2009

I think I contradicted myself, my apologies haha.

okay so yes you cannot set a TAG port on VLAN1 because that is default.

How about your switch you are trunking to. What is that configured as? This is also KEY. In your case, the other switch should have it’s trunk port sending VLAN1 untagged, but vlan13 should be tagged. Because VLAN1 on these dells are default and cannot receive receive tagged packets. Try this and let me know..

OTherwise…

A) Make Port 1 your trunk port (as I know I had this working)

B) Don’t use VLAN1, use a different VLAN instead of VLAN1 to get out of that problem with the default VLAN.
Teixeira
2 Mar, 2009

i’ve a Dell PC 6024 L3 switch in the other side, and as i can configure it via console its way more direct and easy. In the 6024 switch i’ve the same number and id vlans, and i’ve the “switch mode trunk” activated to the port that connects this 2724 switch, and i’ve the vlan access configured to use the trunk link port.
I’m gonna try with your tips, put this working… just for curiosity, i searched the Dell community foruns and i found and answer that says: ” set the trunk port PVID = 4095″ weird but…. just for curiosity, if u wanna see it http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/18532083/18655069.aspx#18655069

Tricky damn switch huh?

Thanks once, more!

Br,
Teixeira
shank
9 Mar, 2009

Hey, and luck on this?
keith
26 May, 2009

here is my config:

- VLAN 10: Ports 1-5
- VLAN 50: Ports 6-10

Each Port is setup as “T” for the appropriate VLAN, and the PVID is set as “10″ or “50″ for each port.

On Port 11 & 12 I have a server running ESX with VMs configured for VLANs 10 & 50. In the cisco world i would “trunk” ports 11 & 12 so all VLANs come communicate across those ports.

With a Dell 2716, do I simply tag ports 11 & 12 with each VLAN? So port 11 would have a “T” for VLAN 10 & 50 (same for port 12)?? If so, what PVID should be set for ports 11 & 12?

Thanks…this was a great article!!!!
Ted
19 Jun, 2009

Shank,

I have problem configuring a Dell 5448 switch for vlans with traffic going in/out from a Netscreen SSG140 FW.

I created 3 vlans on the switch
1. vlan2 (internet connection)
2. vlan3 (web app)
3. vlan4 (database)

vlan1 is the Dell default.

In vlan2, I have the Internet cable and & the public interface of the FW.
I picked port 11 to be the trunk where the internal fw interface is plugged in.
I could ping servers on vlan1 from vlan3 but not vice versa.

The fw guy told to create another vlan100 and match that up with the vlan100 tagged on the FW.
So I created the vlan100 selecting a port leaving it untagged (U) and picked the trunk port 11 for the vlan100. After I did that, I lost connection to the Internet.
I am not sure why that would make a difference to solve the problem of pinging vlan3 from vlan1.

Please advise.
Thanks.