[c-nsp] Out of VLANs on a 2924XL

[Bill Nash]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006, Rick Kunkel wrote:

> I've since read about the 64 VLAN and 64 spanning-tree instances on this 
> switch.
> 
> I mistakenly thought that VTP pruning might fix it, but apparently that 
> only keeps traffic from traversing the link, not the VLAN table.
> 
> Then I thought I could do it with the "switchport trunk allowed vlan X" 
> command, but that doesn't seem to do it either.  I was hoping, again, that 
> i might keep those vlans from being advertised.
> 

Yeah, pruning is just for the traffic, not the entries in the vlan 
database. Be happy the switch told you off when you issued the commands. I 
can cite a case of adding the 65th vlan on the vtp server (a cat 6500) 
which then pushed it down the chain, and had an entire rack of 2900XLs 
*automatically* switch to transparent mode. At the same time. Surprise!

> So I'm kinda stuck.  I SUSPECT that I can proably swing this by 
> "downgrading" to VTP transparent mode and just configuring everything on 
> each switch ultra-manually.  Is that possible?

Yes, but you're essentially removing your switch from the VTP mesh, when 
you do this. For all intents and purposes, you'll be treating your switch 
like any other vendors hardware that doesn't work with VTP. This is an 
interoperation issue we've had with Dell Powerconnects (one of many.)

> Also, I did temporarily switch one to transparent mode, and all the vlans 
> were still there.  Since the thing is a stand-alone now, would it be safe 
> to remove them without affecting any of the other switches?
> 

I'm reading this as: You switched the mode, but you didn't clear your vlan 
database.

- billn