Trunk Links to Servers.

I've just read and its possible to have trunk links to server instead of have a router, when using different VLANS.

In a trunk link the frame is tagged therefore would the server not drop the frames and framing tagging is on for switches?

Thanks

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Comments

billyr

Its probably possible if you have a network card that supports the correct encapsulation.

I think the question would be, why would you want to though? As trunks carry broadcast traffic for all vlans, the server would be getting hammered with all that extra traffic.

SteveO86

The adapter settings of the NIC within device may include the options to support VLANs.

Finding situations like this are few in between.. Unless you running routing on a windows server or a VPN server providing access to multiple networks/VLANs.

Just remember a windows server running a routing role is not a Cisco router.

GT-Rob

Trunks are common when the switchport connects to an ESX host (VM) that has many virtual NICs/servers within it. This way the host can set the virtual NICs to different vlans and pass the traffic up to the Cisco switch in whatever VLAN they are in (anything not tagged ends up in the native vlan). Blade switches are likely to be set up like this.

lon21

billyr wrote: »

Its probably possible if you have a network card that supports the correct encapsulation.

I think the question would be, why would you want to though? As trunks carry broadcast traffic for all vlans, the server would be getting hammered with all that extra traffic.

I guess this would eliminate the need for a router?

networker050184

billyr wrote: »

I think the question would be, why would you want to though? As trunks carry broadcast traffic for all vlans, the server would be getting hammered with all that extra traffic.

If you have a server with many VMs running that need to be in different VLANs would you rather have one connection or a new NIC/switchport for every virtual server that needs to go on a new VLAN?

capitanuionut

networker050184 wrote: »

If you have a server with many VMs running that need to be in different VLANs would you rather have one connection or a new NIC/switchport for every virtual server that needs to go on a new VLAN?

When running multiple VM's they actually run on the same psyhical NIC...and VM's can be configured in different VLAN's with a proper ip address...

If the physical NIC supports a trunking protocol, this means all the VM running on the server will suport a different VLAN since they emulate entirely the physical NIC...so i believe the communication will be possible...

ehnde

Another common scenario is running a trunk port from a networking lab server at home to a "breakout switch". You associate 1 port per vlan on the switch, and it's like having 16, 24, 32, etc network cards on 1 computer connected to your external equipment.

Zartanasaurus

This is very common when connecting to VM server farms. If the NIC supports tagging, you can have a trunk to the server.

billyr

Has anyone mentioned it would be useful for virtualisation yet?