VLAN / Trunk Config in DELL PowerConnect 3024 Switch

This tutorial shows you how to configure vlan and trunk port in DELL PowerConnect 3024 Switch. If you are a network engineer, you must be already familiar with vlan and trunk configuration in Cisco Catalyst switches.

In Dell PowerConnect switches there is a bit different in trunking terminology. Trunking ports in Dell is much like port-channel in Cisco Catalyst whereas the trunk port in Cisco means the ports that can carry several vlans accros the cable. This tutorial will configure trunk port in DELL PowerConnect 3024 Switch as trunk port in Cisco Catalyst switches.

To make it easy, we will use network diagram below:

Dell PowerConnect 3024 Sample Topology

Though you can configure the switch by using the web-based application, we will configure it via console cable because it is much faster.

The network diagram is shown as above. Port 1 will be the trunk port and it is connected to the router. The router is configured with vlan 10 and vlan 11 with the IP address 192.168.10.254/24 and 192.168.11.254/24 respectively. The port 1 will carry vlan 10 and vlan 11 from the switch to the router across the cable. Port 2 and 3 are configured with vlan 10 and vlan 11 respectively and connected to the Lappie1 and Lappie2.

Let’s go to the tutorial

1. Connect the serial console cable to the device. Use 9600, N, 8, 1 configuration.

2. In the Main Menu select ‘VLAN and CoS’ the press Enter.

Dell PowerConnect 3024 VLAN Trunk 1

3. In the VLAN and CoS menu, select ‘VLAN Administration’ then press Enter.

Dell PowerConnect 3024 VLAN Trunk 2

4. In the ‘VLAN and CoS/VLAN Administration’, first we will create vlan 10 and 11. Remember to save the configuration by pressing Ctrl-W. Press Esc to go to the previous menu.

Dell PowerConnect 3024 VLAN Trunk 3

5. After creating vlan database, go to the previous menu by pressing Esc. Then we will configure the vlan membership. Select the VLAN Membership.

In the ‘VLAN and CoS/VLAN Membership’ section, set port 1 as a tagged port (indicated by ‘T’) for all the VLANs (vlan 1, 10, and 11) and port 2 and 3 set to untagged (indicated by ‘U’). Press Ctrl-W to save.

Dell PowerConnect 3024 VLAN Trunk 4
Dell PowerConnect 3024 VLAN Trunk 4
Dell PowerConnect 3024 VLAN Trunk 5
Dell PowerConnect 3024 VLAN Trunk 5
Dell PowerConnect 3024 VLAN Trunk 6
Dell PowerConnect 3024 VLAN Trunk 6

6. Press Esc to the previous menu then select ‘Default Port VLAN’. In the ‘VLAN and CoS/Default Port VLAN’ section, set the PVID of port 1, 2, and 3 to 1, 10, and 11 respectively. This will set vlan 10 as default vlan of port 2 and vlan 11 as default vlan of port 3.

Dell PowerConnect 3024 VLAN Trunk 8

Now you have configured the vlan and trunk ports in DELL PowerConnect 3024. Do not forget to always press Ctrl-W to save the configuration to NVRAM.

You can try to ping from Lappie1 and Lappie2 and should get replied.

From Lappie1:

bash-4.1# ping 192.168.10.254
PING 192.168.10.254 (192.168.10.254) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.10.254: icmp_req=1 ttl=64 time=1.41 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.10.254: icmp_req=2 ttl=64 time=0.234 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.10.254: icmp_req=3 ttl=64 time=0.198 ms
^C
--- 192.168.10.254 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2000ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.198/0.615/1.413/0.564 ms

From Lappie2

bash-4.1# ping 192.168.11.254
PING 192.168.11.254 (192.168.11.254) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.11.254: icmp_req=1 ttl=64 time=1.07 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.11.254: icmp_req=2 ttl=64 time=0.230 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.11.254: icmp_req=3 ttl=64 time=0.250 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.11.254: icmp_req=4 ttl=64 time=0.230 ms
^C
--- 192.168.11.254 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3000ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.230/0.446/1.074/0.362 ms