Question regarding Vlans on 2900 XL Catalyst Switch

Victorious

Hey Guys!
I have a quick question...
I have configured vlan 2 on my 2900 series switch and assigned ports fa0/9-fa0/12 and everything seems to be working well. My Vlan1 ip is: 192.168.1.2 /24 and vlan 2's ip: 192.168.2.1 /24. The thing is that when I do a "show ip int br" it shows my vlan 2 as administratively down down although I did a " no shut" from the vlan 2s interface but when I do a "show vlan" command it shows the status of my vlan 2 as "active" I am confused! How can it be active when I do a show vlan and then administratively down down when I do a show ip int br?? The vlan 2 is live and working cause I tested it out. Any clues??

nice343

Is this layer 2 switch connected to a layer 3 device?

mikej412

You only get one active VLAN Interface to use as an administrative interface on a layer 2 switch.

Victorious

Yes buddy. It is currently connect to a router. I have a linksys router connected to it but it should not matter, correct?

Victorious

Mike,
So what happens to vlan 2? I have it active and currently in use??? Can you explain this to me please? thanks

remyforbes777

if you look vlan 1 is probably in an up up status. You can only have one active "administrative" vlan, meaning to be able to connect to that router for administration purposes using an ip address you can only use one of the vlans. Now that vlan 1 has an ip address and is in an up up status you can connect to that router using vlan 1's ip address, but you can only do this to one of the vlans. The other vlans are active meaning other interfaces can belong to that vlan and pass traffic but they are not administratively active.

APA

The address on a L2 switch is purely for management purposes...

You can only ever have one active (up/up) interface on a L2 switch. Hence when you do a not shut on vlan 2 it becomes active and then vlan1 goes into administratively down state.