Jumbo traffic-handling

  • Configuring a voice VLAN to accept jumbo frames is not recommended. Voice VLAN frames are typically small, and allowing a voice VLAN to accept jumbo frame traffic can degrade the voice transmission performance.

  • You can configure the default, primary, and/or (if configured) the management VLAN to accept jumbo frames on all ports belonging to the VLAN.

  • When the switch applies the default MTU (1522-bytes including 4 bytes for the VLAN tag) to a VLAN, all ports in the VLAN can receive incoming frames of up to 1522 bytes. When the switch applies the jumbo MTU (9220 bytes including 4 bytes for the VLAN tag) to a VLAN, all ports in that VLAN can receive incoming frames of up to 9220 bytes. A port receiving frames exceeding the applicable MTU drops such frames, causing the switch to generate an Event Log message and increment the "Giant Rx" counter (displayed by show interfaces <port-list> ).

  • The switch allows flow control and jumbo frame capability to co-exist on a port.

  • The default MTU is 1522 bytes (including 4 bytes for the VLAN tag). The jumbo MTU is 9220 bytes (including 4 bytes for the VLAN tag).

  • When a port is not a member of any jumbo-enabled VLAN, it drops all jumbo traffic. If the port is receiving "excessive"inbound jumbo traffic, the port generates an Event Log message to notify you of this condition. This same condition also increments the switch's "Giant Rx" counter.

  • If you do not want all ports in a given VLAN to accept jumbo frames, you can consider creating one or more jumbo VLANs with a membership comprising only the ports you want to receive jumbo traffic. Because a port belonging to one jumbo-enabled VLAN can receive jumbo frames through any VLAN to which it belongs, this method enables you to include both jumbo-enabled and non-jumbo ports within the same VLAN.

    For example, suppose you want to allow inbound jumbo frames only on ports 6, 7, 12, and 13. However, these ports are spread across VLAN 100 and VLAN 200 and also share these VLANs with other ports you want excluded from jumbo traffic. A solution is to create a third VLAN with the sole purpose of enabling jumbo traffic on the desired ports, while leaving the other ports on the switch disabled for jumbo traffic. That is:
     

    VLAN 100

    VLAN 200

    VLAN 300

    Ports

    6-10

    11-15

    6, 7, 12, and 13

    Jumbo-enabled?

    No

    No

    Yes

    If there are security concerns with grouping the ports as shown for VLAN 300, you can either use source-port filtering to block unwanted traffic paths or create separate jumbo VLANs, one for ports 6 and 7, and another for ports 12 and 13.
  • Outbound jumbo traffic. Any port operating at 1 Gbps or higher can transmit outbound jumbo frames through any VLAN, regardless of the jumbo configuration. The VLAN is not required to be jumbo-enabled, and the port is not required to belong to any other, jumbo-enabled VLANs. This can occur in situations where a non-jumbo VLAN includes some ports that do not belong to another, jumbo-enabled VLAN and some ports that do belong to another, jumbo-enabled VLAN. In this case, ports capable of receiving jumbo frames can forward them to the ports in the VLAN that do not have jumbo capability, as shown in Forwarding jumbo frames through non-jumbo ports.
    Forwarding jumbo frames through non-jumbo ports
    Jumbo frames can also be forwarded out non-jumbo ports when the jumbo frames received inbound on a jumbo-enabled VLAN are routed to another, non-jumbo VLAN for outbound transmission on ports that have no memberships in other, jumbo-capable VLANs. Where either of the above scenarios is a possibility, the downstream device must be configured to accept the jumbo traffic. Otherwise, this traffic will be dropped by the downstream device.