Port Vlan Id; Tagging And Untagging - D-Link DGS-3308 Series User Manual

8-port Gigabit Ethernet Switch User's Guide
The EtherType and VLAN ID are inserted after the MAC source address, but before the originial EtherType/Length or
Logical Link Control. Because the packet is now a bit longer than it was originally, the Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC)
must be recalculated.
Figure 5-5. Adding an IEEE 802.1Q Tag

Port VLAN ID

Packets that are tagged (are carrying the 802.1Q VID information) can be transmitted from one 802.1Q compliant network
device to another with the VLAN information intact. This allows 802.1Q VLANs to span network devices (and indeed, the
entire network – if all network devices are 802.1Q compliant).
Every physical port on a switch has a PVID. 802.1Q ports are also assigned a PVID, for use within the switch. If no VLANs
are defined on the switch, all ports are then assigned to a default VLAN with a PVID equal to 1. Untagged packets are
assigned the PVID of the port on which they were received. Forwarding decisions are based upon this PVID, in so far as
VLANs are concerned. Tagged packets are forwarded according to the VID contained within the tag. Tagged packets are
also assigned a PVID, but the PVID is not used to make packet forwarding decisions, the VID is.
Tag-aware switches must keep a table to relate PVIDs within the switch to VIDs on the network. The switch will compare
the VID of a packet to be transmitted to the VID of the port that is to transmit the packet. If the two VIDs are different,
the switch will drop the packet. Because of the existence of the PVID for untagged packets and the VID for tagged packets,
tag-aware and tag-unaware network devices can coexist on the same network.
A switch port can have only one PVID, but can have as many VIDs as the switch has memory in its VLAN table to store
them.
Because some devices on a network may be tag-unaware, a decision must be made at each port on a tag-aware device
before packets are transmitted – should the packet to be transmitted have a tag or not? If the transmitting port is
connected to a tag-unaware device, the packet should be untagged. If the transmitting port is connected to a tag-aware
device, the packet should be tagged.

Tagging and Untagging

Every port on an 802.1Q compliant switch can be configured as tagging or untagging.
Ports with tagging enabled will put the VID number, priority and other VLAN information into the header of all packets
that flow into and out of it. If a packet has previously been tagged, the port will not alter the packet, thus keeping the
VLAN information intact. The VLAN information in the tag can then be used by other 802.1Q compliant devices on the
network to make packet forwarding decisions.
Ports with untagging enabled will strip the 802.1Q tag from all packets that flow into and out of those ports. If the packet
doesn't have an 802.1Q VLAN tag, the port will not alter the packet. Thus, all packets received by and forwarded by an
untagging port will have no 802.1Q VLAN information. (Remember that the PVID is only used internally within the
switch). Untagging is used to send packets from an 802.1Q-compliant network device to a non-compliant network device.
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