Re: VTP Domain, (again)
why not have two servers and set a priority for each ??... steve From: Robert Padjen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Robert Padjen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jianfeng Wang [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: Stephen Skinner [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: VTP Domain, (again) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:15:26 -0800 (PST) As we discussed in a subsequent post, I overstated my religious positions. Yes, the CatOS will allow all members of a domain to be server, but there are issues with the domain understanding the 'correct server' under specific circumstances. As such, and given no real real-time redundancy requirements for the protocol, I maintain that only one switch should be given server status in the domain and all other switches should be made clients. --- Jianfeng Wang [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As I know, you can have more than one VTP servers in a domain and all switches in the domain can be a server. Changes on any server will automatically propagate to all switches in the domain. No changes allowed on a client. Robert Padjen wrote: Only one switch in a domain can act as the server. All others must be clients. The recommendation to set up the 'biggest' switch as a server is OK, however, it is not really necessary. If it works out, the server should be the switch closest to the center of the VTP domain. This will usually have the best/most connections to the rest of the domain, which will provide the best, central administration point. I would also recommend that you standardize on all lower case or all upper case for the VTP domain name, and that you actively set version two assuming that all devices in the domain support it. I will note that I know quite a few administrators who have just gone to transparent mode and forgo VTP. This seems to be because they've been burned, especially in the 3.x version of CatOS, which did have some bugs. I'd recommend using it, but make sure you follow the rules. --- Stephen Skinner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Make sure you set the Biggest switch as a server,set up your next biggest switch as server also . Set the domain on the Server FIRST. MAKE sure all VLAN info is correct..BEFORE you setup VTP. Don`t do it until everyone has gone home (OVERTIME Tee Hee) make the domain name MEAN somethinghelpfull later . Check all CDP info beforehand (make sure all switches see eachother...if there supposed to). Store all Vlan info before.MAKE sure you know all about the VLAN`s first... IF you have diffrent info about different Vlan`s on different switches make these switches all SERVER`S DON`T PANIC!! HTH steve "AA my god , what `s happened to my LAN" From: Mingzhou Nie [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Mingzhou Nie [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: VTP Domain, (again) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 11:36:05 -0500 You can set all switchs as domain server or elect one core switch as server and others as clien. Just do set vtp domain 'name' command on each switch. You don't to do anything else. The valn name is just like an alias, it doesn't affect the functinality. You can not mannual change the VTP revision unless you reboot a VTP server switch. Hope it helps, Ming Wonkyu Lee wrote: HI All, The place where I'm working at right now has several vlans and trunking. However, from the beginning, no one turned on the VTP Domain. So whenever I put a new switch into the existing LAN, and setting up a vlan and trunking, I have to add them manually. So I'm thinking I'm enabling the VTP domain on all switches. We have 5500, 5002s, 2900XLs, 3500XLs. So here goes my question.. What is the procedure to enable the domain feature ? I know the CLI how to do it, but what should I beware of before I do it? What will happen when the vtp starts to advertising its vlan database to client switches, which have already all the infos stored in manually? Some vlans have their name on one switch(ex, TECH), but the others don't(vlan13) and would it be a problem ? Can i change a VTP revision number manually? Wonkyu Lee _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- | |Mingzhou Nie :|: :|: Customer Support Engineer :|: :|: TAC, RTP, NC .:|:.:|:
Re: VTP Domain, (again)
As I know, you can have more than one VTP servers in a domain and all switches in the domain can be a server. Changes on any server will automatically propagate to all switches in the domain. No changes allowed on a client. Robert Padjen wrote: Only one switch in a domain can act as the server. All others must be clients. The recommendation to set up the 'biggest' switch as a server is OK, however, it is not really necessary. If it works out, the server should be the switch closest to the center of the VTP domain. This will usually have the best/most connections to the rest of the domain, which will provide the best, central administration point. I would also recommend that you standardize on all lower case or all upper case for the VTP domain name, and that you actively set version two assuming that all devices in the domain support it. I will note that I know quite a few administrators who have just gone to transparent mode and forgo VTP. This seems to be because they've been burned, especially in the 3.x version of CatOS, which did have some bugs. I'd recommend using it, but make sure you follow the rules. --- Stephen Skinner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Make sure you set the Biggest switch as a server,set up your next biggest switch as server also . Set the domain on the Server FIRST. MAKE sure all VLAN info is correct..BEFORE you setup VTP. Don`t do it until everyone has gone home (OVERTIME Tee Hee) make the domain name MEAN somethinghelpfull later . Check all CDP info beforehand (make sure all switches see eachother...if there supposed to). Store all Vlan info before.MAKE sure you know all about the VLAN`s first... IF you have diffrent info about different Vlan`s on different switches make these switches all SERVER`S DON`T PANIC!! HTH steve "AA my god , what `s happened to my LAN" From: Mingzhou Nie [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Mingzhou Nie [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: VTP Domain, (again) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 11:36:05 -0500 You can set all switchs as domain server or elect one core switch as server and others as clien. Just do set vtp domain 'name' command on each switch. You don't to do anything else. The valn name is just like an alias, it doesn't affect the functinality. You can not mannual change the VTP revision unless you reboot a VTP server switch. Hope it helps, Ming Wonkyu Lee wrote: HI All, The place where I'm working at right now has several vlans and trunking. However, from the beginning, no one turned on the VTP Domain. So whenever I put a new switch into the existing LAN, and setting up a vlan and trunking, I have to add them manually. So I'm thinking I'm enabling the VTP domain on all switches. We have 5500, 5002s, 2900XLs, 3500XLs. So here goes my question.. What is the procedure to enable the domain feature ? I know the CLI how to do it, but what should I beware of before I do it? What will happen when the vtp starts to advertising its vlan database to client switches, which have already all the infos stored in manually? Some vlans have their name on one switch(ex, TECH), but the others don't(vlan13) and would it be a problem ? Can i change a VTP revision number manually? Wonkyu Lee _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- | |Mingzhou Nie :|: :|: Customer Support Engineer :|: :|: TAC, RTP, NC .:|:.:|:. Tel/Fax: 919.392.4732 C i s c o S y s t e m s Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] = Robert Padjen __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Non
Re: VTP Domain, (again)
As we discussed in a subsequent post, I overstated my religious positions. Yes, the CatOS will allow all members of a domain to be server, but there are issues with the domain understanding the 'correct server' under specific circumstances. As such, and given no real real-time redundancy requirements for the protocol, I maintain that only one switch should be given server status in the domain and all other switches should be made clients. --- Jianfeng Wang [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As I know, you can have more than one VTP servers in a domain and all switches in the domain can be a server. Changes on any server will automatically propagate to all switches in the domain. No changes allowed on a client. Robert Padjen wrote: Only one switch in a domain can act as the server. All others must be clients. The recommendation to set up the 'biggest' switch as a server is OK, however, it is not really necessary. If it works out, the server should be the switch closest to the center of the VTP domain. This will usually have the best/most connections to the rest of the domain, which will provide the best, central administration point. I would also recommend that you standardize on all lower case or all upper case for the VTP domain name, and that you actively set version two assuming that all devices in the domain support it. I will note that I know quite a few administrators who have just gone to transparent mode and forgo VTP. This seems to be because they've been burned, especially in the 3.x version of CatOS, which did have some bugs. I'd recommend using it, but make sure you follow the rules. --- Stephen Skinner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Make sure you set the Biggest switch as a server,set up your next biggest switch as server also . Set the domain on the Server FIRST. MAKE sure all VLAN info is correct..BEFORE you setup VTP. Don`t do it until everyone has gone home (OVERTIME Tee Hee) make the domain name MEAN somethinghelpfull later . Check all CDP info beforehand (make sure all switches see eachother...if there supposed to). Store all Vlan info before.MAKE sure you know all about the VLAN`s first... IF you have diffrent info about different Vlan`s on different switches make these switches all SERVER`S DON`T PANIC!! HTH steve "AA my god , what `s happened to my LAN" From: Mingzhou Nie [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Mingzhou Nie [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: VTP Domain, (again) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 11:36:05 -0500 You can set all switchs as domain server or elect one core switch as server and others as clien. Just do set vtp domain 'name' command on each switch. You don't to do anything else. The valn name is just like an alias, it doesn't affect the functinality. You can not mannual change the VTP revision unless you reboot a VTP server switch. Hope it helps, Ming Wonkyu Lee wrote: HI All, The place where I'm working at right now has several vlans and trunking. However, from the beginning, no one turned on the VTP Domain. So whenever I put a new switch into the existing LAN, and setting up a vlan and trunking, I have to add them manually. So I'm thinking I'm enabling the VTP domain on all switches. We have 5500, 5002s, 2900XLs, 3500XLs. So here goes my question.. What is the procedure to enable the domain feature ? I know the CLI how to do it, but what should I beware of before I do it? What will happen when the vtp starts to advertising its vlan database to client switches, which have already all the infos stored in manually? Some vlans have their name on one switch(ex, TECH), but the others don't(vlan13) and would it be a problem ? Can i change a VTP revision number manually? Wonkyu Lee _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- | |Mingzhou Nie :|: :|: Customer Support Engineer :|: :|: TAC, RTP, NC .:|:.:|:. Tel/Fax: 919.392.4732 C i s c o S y s t e m s Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. _ FAQ, lis
Re: Subject: RE: VTP Domain, (again)
You correctly intrepreted most of my comments. I will note that you are one of few that control the revision number - most environments just go to a switch and make the changes. Even in a primary, backup, client model I could see areas for concern, and I just haven't seen a need to have a 'backup.' If the 'server' dies I will likely not be making VTP changes, but should I need to I can easily promote a client. Yes, I would have concerns about using a very small switch for the VTP server, however, the CPU and other requirements are so small that the original poster, I believe, overstated the need to 'use the biggest, baddest switch in the network.' It just doesn't matter that much, although I would use a redundant Supervisor 5500 over a 1900, for example. I did not mean to imply core of the network, per se, but rather center of the VTP domain. My words did not preference distribution layer versus core, however, it would normally seem that a three-tier design would lend itself to a VTP domain in each distribution layer independent of the others. This is the model we use at a number of large customer sites, and it allows a little sloppyness in VLAN numbers, etc. Of course, this is not introduced by moi g... Excellent points overall - including VTP v2. The typical issue here is that, if the entire switch domain supports it, someone will come along in a VTP v1 domain and say, 'Ah, let's turn on VTP v2 on this switch because it must be better.' (This is usually a bad reason to do things...) ;) --- Paul Werner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was very tempted to address this post, but I wanted to see if others would catch the problem. I think what exists here is confusion about abilities of a switch versus best recommended design practices. Any switch that is capable of VTP is capable of using one of three modes: transparent, server, or client. Which one you use is driven by your design requirements. If you do not want dynamic creation of VLANs to occur within a switching domain, you probably want to use transparent mode on all switches. If you want an automated method of creating, modifying, and deleting VLANs, than you need to use either client or server mode. Unlike the original poster, I will recommend that you have a "primary server" and a "backup server." Both are configured as a VTP server, but only the primary is used unless it is brought down for maintenance, in which case the secondary is used. All other switches in the domain should be VTP clients and any switch that joins the domain should have its configuration revision number set to zero first before joining the domain (along with a number of other configuration steps!). As the original poster did mention, VTP domains are case sesitive. As a convention, I always stick to lower case characters whenever possible in networking. I would also take exception with the design requirements/capabilities of the VTP server. My recommendation would be to use one of your two distribution switches as a primary and use the other as a secondary. I make this recommendation for several reasons. If your switching domain has a lot of VLANs, you don't want to overwhelm a CAT 1900 with this responsibility. Secondly, if you lose the trunk to an access switch which is your VTP server, you may have discontinuities in your domain due to the fact that your access switches are single points of failure(this assumes that you wrongfully attempt to add VLANs via VTP from another switch). OTOH, if your disribution switch goes down, your layer 2 connectvity is only briefly interrupted while spanning tree reconverges. You can easily continue VTP operations on your secondary server while you troubleshoot, repair, and bring your primary VTP server back on line. As far as using VTP versions 1 or 2, you may not have a choice. If you have legacy switches in your network that do not use VTP version 2, you will need to revert to VTP version 1. You may want to give this link a checkout to see when you might want to use VTP version 2 an when you *have* to use version 2: http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/cat5000/rel_ 4_2/config/vlans.pdf here for the IOS based stuff: http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/c2900xl/29_3 5xu/scg/kivlan.pdf HTH, Paul Werner Subject: RE: VTP Domain, (again) Incorrect. All switches in a domain can act as servers. Where did you get your info? - -Original Message----- Subject: Re: VTP Domain, (again) Only one switch in a domain can act as the server. All others must be clients. The recommendation to set up the 'biggest' switch as a server is OK, however, it is not really necessary. If it works out, the server should be the switch closest to the center of the VTP domain. This will usually have the bes
Re: VTP Domain, (again)
Only one switch in a domain can act as the server. All others must be clients. The recommendation to set up the 'biggest' switch as a server is OK, however, it is not really necessary. If it works out, the server should be the switch closest to the center of the VTP domain. This will usually have the best/most connections to the rest of the domain, which will provide the best, central administration point. I would also recommend that you standardize on all lower case or all upper case for the VTP domain name, and that you actively set version two assuming that all devices in the domain support it. I will note that I know quite a few administrators who have just gone to transparent mode and forgo VTP. This seems to be because they've been burned, especially in the 3.x version of CatOS, which did have some bugs. I'd recommend using it, but make sure you follow the rules. --- Stephen Skinner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Make sure you set the Biggest switch as a server,set up your next biggest switch as server also . Set the domain on the Server FIRST. MAKE sure all VLAN info is correct..BEFORE you setup VTP. Don`t do it until everyone has gone home (OVERTIME Tee Hee) make the domain name MEAN somethinghelpfull later . Check all CDP info beforehand (make sure all switches see eachother...if there supposed to). Store all Vlan info before.MAKE sure you know all about the VLAN`s first... IF you have diffrent info about different Vlan`s on different switches make these switches all SERVER`S DON`T PANIC!! HTH steve "AA my god , what `s happened to my LAN" From: Mingzhou Nie [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Mingzhou Nie [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: VTP Domain, (again) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 11:36:05 -0500 You can set all switchs as domain server or elect one core switch as server and others as clien. Just do set vtp domain 'name' command on each switch. You don't to do anything else. The valn name is just like an alias, it doesn't affect the functinality. You can not mannual change the VTP revision unless you reboot a VTP server switch. Hope it helps, Ming Wonkyu Lee wrote: HI All, The place where I'm working at right now has several vlans and trunking. However, from the beginning, no one turned on the VTP Domain. So whenever I put a new switch into the existing LAN, and setting up a vlan and trunking, I have to add them manually. So I'm thinking I'm enabling the VTP domain on all switches. We have 5500, 5002s, 2900XLs, 3500XLs. So here goes my question.. What is the procedure to enable the domain feature ? I know the CLI how to do it, but what should I beware of before I do it? What will happen when the vtp starts to advertising its vlan database to client switches, which have already all the infos stored in manually? Some vlans have their name on one switch(ex, TECH), but the others don't(vlan13) and would it be a problem ? Can i change a VTP revision number manually? Wonkyu Lee _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- | |Mingzhou Nie :|: :|: Customer Support Engineer :|: :|: TAC, RTP, NC .:|:.:|:. Tel/Fax: 919.392.4732 C i s c o S y s t e m s Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] = Robert Padjen __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: VTP Domain, (again)
Incorrect. All switches in a domain can act as servers. Where did you get your info? -Original Message- From: Robert Padjen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 1:20 PM To: Stephen Skinner; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: VTP Domain, (again) Only one switch in a domain can act as the server. All others must be clients. The recommendation to set up the 'biggest' switch as a server is OK, however, it is not really necessary. If it works out, the server should be the switch closest to the center of the VTP domain. This will usually have the best/most connections to the rest of the domain, which will provide the best, central administration point. I would also recommend that you standardize on all lower case or all upper case for the VTP domain name, and that you actively set version two assuming that all devices in the domain support it. I will note that I know quite a few administrators who have just gone to transparent mode and forgo VTP. This seems to be because they've been burned, especially in the 3.x version of CatOS, which did have some bugs. I'd recommend using it, but make sure you follow the rules. --- Stephen Skinner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Make sure you set the Biggest switch as a server,set up your next biggest switch as server also . Set the domain on the Server FIRST. MAKE sure all VLAN info is correct..BEFORE you setup VTP. Don`t do it until everyone has gone home (OVERTIME Tee Hee) make the domain name MEAN somethinghelpfull later . Check all CDP info beforehand (make sure all switches see eachother...if there supposed to). Store all Vlan info before.MAKE sure you know all about the VLAN`s first... IF you have diffrent info about different Vlan`s on different switches make these switches all SERVER`S DON`T PANIC!! HTH steve "AA my god , what `s happened to my LAN" From: Mingzhou Nie [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Mingzhou Nie [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: VTP Domain, (again) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 11:36:05 -0500 You can set all switchs as domain server or elect one core switch as server and others as clien. Just do set vtp domain 'name' command on each switch. You don't to do anything else. The valn name is just like an alias, it doesn't affect the functinality. You can not mannual change the VTP revision unless you reboot a VTP server switch. Hope it helps, Ming Wonkyu Lee wrote: HI All, The place where I'm working at right now has several vlans and trunking. However, from the beginning, no one turned on the VTP Domain. So whenever I put a new switch into the existing LAN, and setting up a vlan and trunking, I have to add them manually. So I'm thinking I'm enabling the VTP domain on all switches. We have 5500, 5002s, 2900XLs, 3500XLs. So here goes my question.. What is the procedure to enable the domain feature ? I know the CLI how to do it, but what should I beware of before I do it? What will happen when the vtp starts to advertising its vlan database to client switches, which have already all the infos stored in manually? Some vlans have their name on one switch(ex, TECH), but the others don't(vlan13) and would it be a problem ? Can i change a VTP revision number manually? Wonkyu Lee _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- | |Mingzhou Nie :|: :|: Customer Support Engineer :|: :|: TAC, RTP, NC .:|:.:|:. Tel/Fax: 919.392.4732 C i s c o S y s t e m s Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] = Robert Padjen __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Subject: RE: VTP Domain, (again)
I was very tempted to address this post, but I wanted to see if others would catch the problem. I think what exists here is confusion about abilities of a switch versus best recommended design practices. Any switch that is capable of VTP is capable of using one of three modes: transparent, server, or client. Which one you use is driven by your design requirements. If you do not want dynamic creation of VLANs to occur within a switching domain, you probably want to use transparent mode on all switches. If you want an automated method of creating, modifying, and deleting VLANs, than you need to use either client or server mode. Unlike the original poster, I will recommend that you have a "primary server" and a "backup server." Both are configured as a VTP server, but only the primary is used unless it is brought down for maintenance, in which case the secondary is used. All other switches in the domain should be VTP clients and any switch that joins the domain should have its configuration revision number set to zero first before joining the domain (along with a number of other configuration steps!). As the original poster did mention, VTP domains are case sesitive. As a convention, I always stick to lower case characters whenever possible in networking. I would also take exception with the design requirements/capabilities of the VTP server. My recommendation would be to use one of your two distribution switches as a primary and use the other as a secondary. I make this recommendation for several reasons. If your switching domain has a lot of VLANs, you don't want to overwhelm a CAT 1900 with this responsibility. Secondly, if you lose the trunk to an access switch which is your VTP server, you may have discontinuities in your domain due to the fact that your access switches are single points of failure(this assumes that you wrongfully attempt to add VLANs via VTP from another switch). OTOH, if your disribution switch goes down, your layer 2 connectvity is only briefly interrupted while spanning tree reconverges. You can easily continue VTP operations on your secondary server while you troubleshoot, repair, and bring your primary VTP server back on line. As far as using VTP versions 1 or 2, you may not have a choice. If you have legacy switches in your network that do not use VTP version 2, you will need to revert to VTP version 1. You may want to give this link a checkout to see when you might want to use VTP version 2 an when you *have* to use version 2: http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/cat5000/rel_ 4_2/config/vlans.pdf here for the IOS based stuff: http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/c2900xl/29_3 5xu/scg/kivlan.pdf HTH, Paul Werner Subject: RE: VTP Domain, (again) Incorrect. All switches in a domain can act as servers. Where did you get your info? - -Original Message----- Subject: Re: VTP Domain, (again) Only one switch in a domain can act as the server. All others must be clients. The recommendation to set up the 'biggest' switch as a server is OK, however, it is not really necessary. If it works out, the server should be the switch closest to the center of the VTP domain. This will usually have the best/most connections to the rest of the domain, which will provide the best, central administration point. I would also recommend that you standardize on all lower case or all upper case for the VTP domain name, and that you actively set version two assuming that all devices in the domain support it. I will note that I know quite a few administrators who have just gone to transparent mode and forgo VTP. This seems to be because they've been burned, especially in the 3.x version of CatOS, which did have some bugs. I'd recommend using it, but make sure you follow the rules. Get your own "800" number Voicemail, fax, email, and a lot more http://www.ureach.com/reg/tag _ FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]