User's Manual
19-11
Catalyst 3750-X and 3560-X Switch Software Configuration Guide
OL-21521-01
Chapter 19 Configuring IEEE 802.1Q and Layer 2 Protocol Tunneling
Configuring Layer 2 Protocol Tunneling
See Figure 19-4, with Customer X and Customer Y in access VLANs 30 and 40, respectively. 
Asymmetric links connect the customers in Site 1 to edge switches in the service-provider network. The 
Layer 2 PDUs (for e
xample, BPDUs) coming into Switch B from Customer Y in Site 1 are forwarded to 
the infrastructure as double-tagged packets with the well-known MAC address as the destination MAC 
address. These double-tagged packets have the metro VLAN tag of 40, as well as an inner VLAN tag 
(for example, VLAN 100). When the double-tagged packets enter Switch D, the outer VLAN tag 40 is 
removed, the well-known MAC address is replaced with the respective Layer 2 protocol MAC address, 
and the packet is sent to Customer Y on Site 2 as a single-tagged frame in VLAN 100. 
You can also enable Layer 2 protocol tunneling on a
ccess ports on the edge switch connected to access 
or trunk ports on the customer switch. In this case, the encapsulation and decapsulation process is the 
same as described in the previous paragraph, except that the packets are not double-tagged in the 
service-provider network. The single tag is the customer-specific access VLAN tag.
In switch stacks, Layer 2 protocol tunneling configuration is distributed among all stack members. Each 
stack member that rece
ives an ingress packet on a local port encapsulates or decapsulates the packet and 
forwards it to the appropriate destination port. On a single switch, ingress Layer 2 protocol-tunneled 
traffic is sent across all local ports in the same VLAN on which Layer 2 protocol tunneling is enabled. 
In a stack, packets received by a Layer 2 protocol-tunneled port are distributed to all ports in the stack 
that are configured for Layer 2 protocol tunneling and are in the same VLAN. All Layer 2 protocol 
tunneling configuration is handled by the stack master and distributed to all stack members.
These sections contain this co
nfiguration information:
  • Default Layer 2 Protocol Tunneling Configuration, page 19-11
  • Layer 2 Protocol Tunneling Configuration Guidelines, page 19-12
  • Configuring Layer 2 Protocol Tunneling, page 19-13
  • Configuring Layer 2 Tunneling for EtherChannels, page 19-14
Default Layer 2 Protocol Tunneling Configuration
Table 19-1 shows the default Layer 2 protocol tunneling configuration.
Ta ble  19-1 Default Layer 2 Ethernet Interface VLAN Configuration 
Feature Default Setting
Layer 2 protocol tunneling Disabled.
Shutdown threshold None set.
Drop threshold None set.
CoS value  If a CoS value is configured on the interface, that value is used to 
se
t the BPDU CoS value for Layer 2 protocol tunneling. If no CoS 
value is configured at the interface level, the default value for CoS 
marking of L2 protocol tunneling BPDUs is 5. This does not apply 
to data traffic.










