RuggedCom RuggedRouter RX1000 - Manual (Page 59)

Chapter 5 – Configuring Ethernet Interfaces
Chapter 5 – Configuring Ethernet Interfaces
Introduction
This chapter familiarizes the user with:
• Reading the Ethernet LEDs
• Configuring Ethernet Network Interfaces
• Configuring VLANs
• Configuring PPPoE
Ethernet Interface Fundamentals
RuggedCom manufactures dual Ethernet Interface boards in a variety of formats.
Some (most notably the optical interfaces) have the same outward appearance but
different order numbers. A complete set of descriptions is displayed on the console
during boot and can be found after boot in the file /var/cache/ruggedrouter/inventory.
LED Designations
The RuggedRouter includes two sources of LED indicated information about Ethernet
ports, the front panel LEDs and the LED Panel.
A LED is associated with each port, next to the Ethernet interface RJ45 socket. This
LED is off when the link is disconnected, remains solidly on when the link is
established and flashes briefly from on to off when traffic occurs.
The LED Panel also summarizes this information. LEDs 1-4 reflect traffic on
Ethernet port 1-4. LEDs 5-8 reflect the link status of the same ports.
VLAN Interface Fundamentals
A virtual LAN (VLAN) is a group of devices on one or more LAN segments that
communicate as if they were attached to the same physical LAN segment. VLANs
are extremely flexible because they are based on logical instead of physical
connections. When VLANs are introduced, all traffic in the network must belong to
one or another VLAN. Traffic on one VLAN cannot pass to another, except through
an intranetwork router or layer 3 switch.
The IEEE 802.1Q protocol specifies how traffic on a single physical network can be
partitioned into VLANs by “tagging” each frame or packet with extra bytes to denote
which virtual network the packet belongs to.
VLAN Tag
A VLAN tag is the identification information that is present in frames in order to
support VLAN operation. The 4-byte VLAN tag is inserted into the Ethernet frame
between the Source MAC Address field and the Length/Type field. The first 2-bytes
of the VLAN tag consist of the "802.1Q Tag Type" and are always set to a value of
0x8100.
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