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How to backup vlan information

Hi

I'd like to add a vlan onto my switch. The worry I have is that I might lose the vlan information or mess up while adding the vlan.

What steps would I take to ensure I have backed up all the switches and their vlan information, and how would I restore it.

Just to add, a few of my switches are in a cluster, I'm not sure if that affects anything or complicates the restore.

Any help appreciated Thanks Dan

Reply to
Dan_track
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make a copy of your vlan.dat file

Reply to
Martin Bilgrav

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

But how do I restore the vlan to all teh switches. Is it simple enough to copy the vlan.dat to all the switches. Lets say I backup only one switch, will it's vlan/dat work for all switches?

Thanks Dan

Reply to
Dan_track

Dan,

I suppose this may work if you are not running vtp. However, if you have a lot of switches and are running vtp, that could be a messy solution. My personal preference is to use a couple vtp servers and the rest clients. If a client switch dies, you can replace it and the new switch will pick up the vlan info. If a server dies, you can install a new one as client and then change it to server after it receives the info. Hopefully, you won't have all the vtp servers die at the same time. It wouldn't hurt to keep a copy of the vlan.dat from one of the vtp servers "Just in case".

Hope that helps,

Jim

Reply to
Scooby

Hi Jim Thanks for your advice. I basically inherited the switch and the current condition is that you have a few switches in vtp mode, with one vtp server, while the other majority is in standalone mode. Would it be difficult to change the other swithes into vtp client mode? what commands would I need to execute.

BTW my switches are a 3524/3548 models.

Thanks Dan

Reply to
Dan_track

From global config, just do 'vtp mode client'. BTW - I always put a domain 'vtp domain ' on mine as well, just in case one gets plugged in to protect from overwriting my vlans.

ALWAYS set a switch to client mode before plugging it into your network (unless you want it to be transparent). Then, once the the switch has received the other vlans, you can set to server if you like.

Just a thought - I haven't used those particular models. I'm speaking from an IOS perspective. Are those CatOS?

Jim

Reply to
Scooby

Hi Jim,

Thanks for reply.To be frank I didn't know there were to OS's. How can I tell?

When I did "sh ver" the second line starts with ISO and its version is

12.0(5)WC2, does this mean I'm using ISO and not CatOS?

Thanks Dan

Reply to
Dan_track

Just a heads up on the domain ... if you're using DTP (dynamic trunking protocol) both end of the trunk need to be in the same domain. This applies even when VTP is not being used.

BernieM

Reply to
BernieM

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