Vlan Overview; Configure A Basic Vlan - NETGEAR M4100 Series User Manual

VLAN Overview

Adding Virtual LAN (VLAN) support to a Layer 2 switch offers some of the benefits of both
bridging and routing. Like a bridge, a VLAN switch forwards traffic based on the Layer 2
header, which is fast, and like a router, it partitions the network into logical segments, which
provides better administration, security, and management of multicast traffic.
By default, all ports on the switch are in the same broadcast domain. VLANs electronically
separate ports on the same switch into separate broadcast domains so that broadcast
packets are not sent to all the ports on a single switch. When you use a VLAN, users can be
grouped by logical function instead of physical location.
Each VLAN in a network has an associated VLAN ID, which appears in the IEEE 802.1Q tag
in the Layer 2 header of packets transmitted on a VLAN. An end station can omit the tag, or
the VLAN portion of the tag, in which case the first switch port to receive the packet can either
reject it or insert a tag using its default VLAN ID. A given port can handle traffic for more than
one VLAN, but it can support only one default VLAN ID.

Configure a Basic VLAN

You can define VLAN groups stored in the VLAN membership table. Each switch in the
managed switch family supports up to 1024 VLANs. Two VLANs are created by default,
VLAN 1 and VLAN 2:
• VLAN 1 is the default VLAN of which all ports are members.
• VLAN 2 is the default Auto VoIP VLAN.
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To configure a basic VLAN:
1. Prepare your computer with a static IP address in the 169.254.100.0 subnet, for
example, 169.254.100.201.
2. Connect an Ethernet cable from an Ethernet port on your computer to an Ethernet port on
the switch.
3. Launch a web browser.
4. Enter the IP address of the switch in the web browser address field.
The default IP address of the switch is 169.254.100.100.
The Login screen displays.
5. Enter the user name and password.
The default admin user name is admin and the default admin password is blank, that is,
do not enter a password.
6. Click the Login button.
The web management interface menu displays.
M4100 Series Managed Switch
Configure Switching Information
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