Configuring VLANs

This chapter describes how to configure your Cisco wireless mobile interface card (WMIC) to operate with the VLANs set up on your wired LAN. These sections describe how to configure your WMIC to support VLANs:

Understanding VLANs

A VLAN is a switched network that is logically segmented, by functions, project teams, or applications rather than on a physical or geographical basis. For example, all workstations and servers used by a particular workgroup team can be connected to the same VLAN, regardless of their physical connections to the network or the fact that they might be intermingled with other teams. You use VLANs to reconfigure the network through software rather than physically unplugging and moving devices or wires.

A VLAN can be thought of as a broadcast domain that exists within a defined set of switches. A VLAN consists of a number of end systems, either hosts or network equipment (such as bridges and routers), connected by a single bridging domain. The bridging domain is supported on various pieces of network equipment such as LAN switches that operate bridging protocols between them with a separate group for each VLAN.

VLANs provide the segmentation services traditionally provided by routers in LAN configurations. VLANs address scalability, security, and network management. You should consider several key issues when designing and building switched LAN networks:

You extend VLANs into a wireless LAN by adding IEEE 802.11Q tag awareness to the WMIC. VLAN 802.1Q trunking is supported between root devices and non-root bridges through the bridges' primary SSID.

Figure 11-1 shows two bridges sending 802.11Q-tagged packets between two LAN segments that use logical VLAN segmentation.

Related Documents

These documents provide more detailed information pertaining to VLAN design and configuration:

Incorporating Wireless Bridges into VLANs

The basic wireless components of a VLAN consist of two or more bridges communicating using wireless technology. The WMIC is physically connected through a trunk port to the network VLAN switch on which the VLAN is configured. The physical connection to the VLAN switch is through the WMIC's Ethernet port.

In fundamental terms, the key to configuring a WMIC to connect to a specific VLAN is by configuring its service set identifier (SSID) to recognize that VLAN. Since VLANs are identified by a VLAN ID, it follows that if the SSID on a WMIC is configured to recognize a specific VLAN ID, a connection to the VLAN is established.

Configuring VLANs

Configuring a VLAN

Enable 802.1q encapsulation on the subinterfaces, and assign one subinterface as the native VLAN.

This section describes how to assign an SSID to a VLAN and how to enable a VLAN on the WMIC radio and Ethernet ports. For detailed instructions on assigning authentication types to SSIDs, see Chapter 9, "Configuring Authentication Types."

To assign an SSID to a VLAN and enable the VLAN on the WMIC radio and Ethernet ports, follow these steps, beginning in privileged EXEC mode:


	Command	Purpose
Step 1	configure terminal	Enters global configuration mode.
Step 2	interface dot11radio0.x	Creates a radio subinterface and enter interface configuration mode for the subinterface.
Step 3	encapsulation dot1q vlan-id [native]	Enables a VLAN on the subinterface. (Optional) Designate the VLAN as the native VLAN. On many networks, the native VLAN is VLAN 1.
Step 4	bridge-group number	Assigns the subinterface to a bridge group. You can number your bridge groups from 1 to 255. Note When you enter the bridge-group command, the WMIC enables the subinterface to be ready to participate in STP when you enter the bridge n protocol ieee command. See Chapter 7, "Configuring Spanning Tree Protocol," for complete instructions on enabling STP on the WMIC.
Step 5	exit	Returns to global configuration mode.
Step 6	interface fastEthernet0.x	Creates an Ethernet subinterface and enter interface configuration mode for the subinterface.
Step 7	encapsulation dot1q vlan-id [native]	Enables a VLAN on the subinterface. (Optional) Designate the VLAN as the native VLAN. On many networks, the native VLAN is VLAN 1.
Step 8	bridge-group number	Assigns the subinterface to a bridge group. You can number your bridge groups from 1 to 255.
Step 9	exit	Returns to global configuration mode.
Step 10	interface dot11radio 0	Enters interface configuration mode for the radio interface.
Step 11	ssid ssid-string	Creates an SSID and enter SSID configuration mode for the new SSID. The SSID can consist of up to 32 alphanumeric characters. SSIDs are case sensitive. You can create up to 16 SSIDs on the bridge; however, only one SSID can be assigned to the native VLAN. Note You use the ssid command's authentication options to configure an authentication type for each SSID. See Chapter 9, "Configuring Authentication Types," for instructions on configuring authentication types.
Step 12	vlan vlan-id	Assigns the SSID to the native VLAN.
Step 13	infrastructure-ssid	Designates the SSID as the infrastructure SSID. It is used to instruct a non-root bridge or workgroup bridge radio to associate with this SSID.
Step 14	encryption [vlan vlan-id] mode wep {optional [key-hash] \| mandatory [mic] [key-hash]}	(Optional) Enables WEP and WEP features on the native VLAN. •(Optional) Select the VLAN for which you want to enable WEP and WEP features. •Set the WEP level and enable TKIP and MIC. If you enter optional, another bridge can associate to the WMIC with or without WEP enabled. You can enable TKIP with WEP set to optional but you cannot enable MIC. If you enter mandatory, other bridges must have WEP enabled to associate to the WMIC. You can enable both TKIP and MIC with WEP set to mandatory. Note You can enable encryption for each VLAN, but the WMIC uses only the encryption on the native VLAN. For example, if the native VLAN encryption is set to 128-bit static WEP, that is the only encryption method used for traffic between the root device and non-root bridge.
Step 15	exit	Returns to interface configuration mode for the radio interface.
Step 16	end	Returns to privileged EXEC mode.
Step 17	copy running-config startup-config	(Optional) Saves your entries in the configuration file.

Viewing VLANs Configured on the WMIC

To view the VLANs that the WMIC supports, use the show vlan command in privileged EXEC mode. The following example shows sample output from the show vlan command:

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