FreeBSD-5.3/share/man/man4/vlan.4

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.\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man4/vlan.4,v 1.14 2004/05/27 11:12:07 yar Exp $
.\"
.Dd May 26, 2004
.Dt VLAN 4
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm vlan
.Nd IEEE 802.1Q VLAN network interface
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Cd device vlan
.\"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
driver demultiplexes frames tagged according to
the IEEE 802.1Q standard into logical
.Nm
network interfaces, which allows routing/bridging between
multiple VLANs through a single switch trunk port.
.Pp
Each
.Nm
interface is created at runtime using interface cloning.
This is
most easily done with the
.Xr ifconfig 8
.Cm create
command or using the
.Va cloned_interfaces
variable in
.Xr rc.conf 5 .
.Pp
To function, a
.Nm
interface must be assigned a parent interface and
numeric VLAN tag using
.Xr ifconfig 8 .
A single parent can be assigned to multiple
.Nm
interfaces provided they have different tags.
The parent interface is likely to be an ethernet card connected
to a properly configured switch port.
The VLAN tag should match one of those set up in the switched
network.
.Pp
The
.Nm
driver supports physical devices that do
the VLAN demultiplexing in firmware.
Devices that have hardware support for
802.1Q VLANs are automatically recognized by their interface capabilities.
.\"
.Ss "Selecting the Right Network Interface Card to Run VLANs Through"
By now, the only NICs that have both hardware support and proper
driver hooks for the 802.1Q VLAN technology in
.Fx
are
.Xr bge 4 ,
.Xr em 4 ,
.Xr gx 4 ,
.Xr nge 4 ,
.Xr re 4 ,
.Xr ti 4 ,
and
.Xr txp 4 .
.Pp
The rest of the ethernet NICs supported by
.Fx
can run
VLANs using software emulation in the
.Nm
driver.
However, most of them lack the capability
of transmitting and/or receiving oversized frames.
Using such a NIC as a parent interface
implies a reduced MTU on the corresponding
.Nm
interfaces.
In the modern Internet, this is likely to cause
.Xr tcp 4
connectivity problems due to massive, inadequate
.Xr icmp 4
filtering that breaks the Path MTU Discovery mechanism.
.Pp
The NICs that support oversized frames are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width ".Xr fxp 4 " -offset indent
.It Xr bfe 4
supports long frames for
.Nm
natively.
.It Xr dc 4
supports long frames for
.Nm
natively.
.It Xr de 4
requires defining
.Dv BIG_PACKET
in the
.Pa /usr/src/sys/pci/if_de.c
source file and rebuilding the kernel
or module.
The hack works only for the 21041, 21140, and 21140A chips.
.It Xr fxp 4
supports long frames for
.Nm
natively.
.It Xr hme 4
supports long frames for
.Nm
natively.
.It Xr rl 4
supports long frames for
.Nm
natively.
.It Xr sis 4
supports long frames for
.Nm
natively.
.It Xr ste 4
supports long frames for
.Nm
natively.
.It Xr tl 4
has support for long frames.
.It Xr tx 4
supports long frames for
.Nm
natively.
.It Xr xl 4
supports long frames only if the card is built on a newer chip
(Cyclone and above).
.El
.Pp
The
.Nm
driver automatically recognizes devices that support oversized frames
for
.Nm
use and calculates the appropriate frame MTU based on the
capabilities of the parent interface.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ifconfig 8
.Sh BUGS
No 802.1Q features except VLAN tagging are implemented.