sundance-communications.com/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Networking VLAN

I have not had any experience with VLAN's. I am installing all IP phones on a customers network and the customer IT person is requesting for our phones to all be on VLAN 10 which I setup in the PBX Programming. The customer IT person claims to have all his programming done in his (cisco ?) switch but the phones don't come up. If I set the phones to VLAN 1 they come up working.

My question is, if anyone can help, can you program a port on the switch to pass more than one VLAN traffic or is the port only allowed to be set to just one VLAN?

(I am really not so sure how well the customers IT person is with all of this either as he will go into his office and close the door to make all his program changes to the network switches, as if he doesn't want anyone to see that he is having trouble trying to figure out the switch programming)

Any information will be greatly appreciated!!!

BTW: The PBX is an ESI-600 Communications Server
with 7 VOIP/IVC24R Cards.

Thanks
Paul

A few things, do you mean VLAN #10? Or something like 192.168.0.1/10

Regardless, The VLAN is physical IP traffic routing on the switch, dependant on PORT usage and MAC addresses. You're changes in software shouldn't effect it, I would set it up the way you would normally, the switch should handle traffic properly.

The Idea of a VLAN is to digitally isolate traffic. So you keep your phone traffic on one VLAN and your computer traffic on the other, that way you can prioritize network usage for phone.

Did you set up the PBX to assign IP address' for the phones? When your're on VLAN 10 you may not be getting to an DHCP server. I'd put a packet sniffer like Wireshark to monitor traffic it will tell you a lot about what is going on instead of just guessing. His switch ports should be set up as mini-ports meaning they kind of act like VLAN trunks so they'll route more than one VLAN. If he set up his ports as standard VLAN then only the VLAN assign to that port will work on that port. By the way, all ports on a Cisco router are set as VLAN 1 by default. I kinda get the feeling that he didn't set any VLANs at all (just a thought). Here is a document on configuring Voice VLANs on a Cisco switch

Thanks for the replies.
I did mean VLAN #10.
The PBX, by default was set to act as the DHCP Server. I left it like that.
Do you think I should have set it up to work off his DHCP Server?
It is hard to figure out how he setup his Cisco Switch as he will only do it behind closed doors and will not allow us "telephone tech's" in to see anything. That is what gives me the impression he is guessing at what he is doing. I don't know, maybe he is the Cisco Kid.
Thanks for the document, I appreciate that, good information.

I suspect the same that he wasn't using VLANs in the first place. You wont be able to use his DHCP server or reach any of the IP addresses on any VLAN except for 10 unless he has VLAN routing in place. Is the phone connected directly to the switch port? Are you getting an IP address from the phone system when your on VLAN 10? Some of this troubleshooting will be easier if you use a laptop on VLAN 10 instead of an IP phone. That way you have better tools to troubleshoot the network issue. You can have multiple VLANs on the same port by setting it as a trunk port but this is typically used for interconnecting switches as its a security hole on a device port. The whole point behind VLANs is to create separate virtual networks that you can then isolate from each other.

Just curious but what do you expect to gain from being able to see him program his switches? Hes probably using a CLI and unless your familiar with the IOS commands its all going to be gobbledeegook. It may just be that hes security conscious and doesn't want just anyone taking a look at his config, him typing in passwords, or his porn collection? I don't allow anyone to see any of my configs or me typing in passwords because I'm security conscious.

No, he wasn't using VLAN's previosuly.
The PBX is setup to give out IP Addresses to the phones.
Yes, the phones are connected directly to the switch ports and their PC's are then connected to the switch port in the base of the phone.
How do you assign a PC to a VLAN? (never have done or seen this done before?)

Actually I really do not care to see his passwords or anything like that, it's just his way of acting and tthe questions he is asking which leads me to think he is learning as he goes kind of thing and I just think he doesn't want anyone to see him trying to learn something he was hire to do in the first place. Most of the IT guys I work with out on jobsites normally pulls up a chair and will ask me to sit down and watch while they try to make it work and are for the most part pretty good natured.
I don't think he would do the pron thing, but who knows anymore now days.
I am security concious also and I generally try to avoid allowing someone to see me type. (Although my typing skills are more like turtle moves than speed typing.)
I appreciate all the input as I never stop learning and I respect all the input from all of you out there.
Thanks
Paul

I'd set the system up for vlan 10 plug a phone directly in to the ivc card. test it, show the IT guy and the customer that it works. Normal it all back up on his switches. Watch it fail. Then politely tell him to fix his $#!^^.

You can have a switch pass multiple VLANs to a port, assuming the switch is VLAN (802.1q) capable. When you configure a port, you can have the packets tagged or not tagged with the VLAN header, which identifies which vlan the packet is for. By default, all ports should be on VLAN 1, and not tagged.

In you case, it sounds like the network guy setup VLAN 10 for you to use, but set the ports to be non-tagged ports. In this case, there's no VLAN header, but the switch itself knows that only certain ports is used for the VLAN 10 and will only pass VLAN 10 traffic to those ports.