Ebreo, Angelika R.

Elective 3
ECE-4202
Homework No. 3

1. What is native vlan? How do we use native vlan?

A native vlan is the untagged vlan on an 802.1q trunked switchport. The native
vlan and management vlan could be the same, but it is better security practice that they
aren't. Basically if a switch receives untagged frames on a trunkport, they are assumed to
be part of the vlan that are designated on the switchport as the native vlan. Frames
egressing a switchport on the native vlan are not tagged. This is the definition however
more recent switch software often will allow you to tag all of the frames, even those in
the native vlan. This gives some added security and allows the CoS bits to be carried
between switches even on the native vlan. The native VLAN is the only VLAN which is not
tagged in a trunk, in other words, native VLAN frames are transmitted unchanged.

Untagged traffic/frames passing along the Native Vlan portion of a trunk is/are,
generated by "some/any device(s)", e.g., a PC, printer, VOIP device or whatever, which
are connected to a switch-port(s) in a network segment, yet have NOT been assigned to
any Vlan, however, generally speaking, remain in their original Vlan 1, or whichever
Vlan they occupy being designated as their "native Vlan". As such, their traffic remains
and passes untagged.

2. How to troubleshoot native vlan mismatch?

If an issue with a trunk is discovered and if the cause is unknown, start
troubleshooting by examining the trunks for a native VLAN mismatch. If that is not the
cause, check for trunk mode mismatches, and finally check for the allowed VLAN list on
the trunk. The condition can be fixed by configuring the same native VLAN on both ends
of the trunk link with #switchport trunk native vlan <vlan-id>.