Installation guide

Cisco HWIC-4ESW and HWIC-D-9ESW EtherSwitch Interface Cards

Prerequisites for EtherSwitch HWICs

Cisco IOS Release 12.3(8)T4

OL-6454-01

• Configuration Examples for EtherSwitch HWICs, page 71

• Additional References, page 81

Prerequisites for EtherSwitch HWICs

The following are prerequisites to configuring EtherSwitch HWICs:

• Configuration of IP routing. (Refer to the Cisco IOS IP Configuration Guide.)

• Use of the Cisco IOS T Release, beginning with release 12.3(8)T4 or later for Cisco HWIC-4ESW

and Cisco HWIC-D-9ESW support. (Refer to the Cisco IOS documentation.)

Restrictions for EtherSwitch HWICs

The following restrictions apply to the Cisco HWIC-4ESW and the Cisco HWIC-D-9ESW EtherSwitch

HWICs.

• No more than two Ethernet Switch HWICs or network modules may be installed in a host router.

Multiple Ethernet Switch HWICs or network modules installed in a host router will not act

independently of each other. They must be stacked, as they will not work at all otherwise.

• The ports of a Cisco EtherSwitch HWIC must NOT be connected to the Fast Ethernet/Gigabit

onboard ports of the router.

• There is no inline power on the ninth port (port 8) of the HWIC-D-9ESW card.

• There is no Auto MDIX support on the ninth port (port 8) of the HWIC-D-9ESW card when either

speed or duplex is not set to auto.

• There is no support for online insertion/removal (OIR) of the EtherSwitch HWICs.

• When Ethernet Switches have been installed and configured in a host router, OIR of the

CompactFlash memory card in the router must not occur. OIR of the CompactFlash memory card

will compromise the configuration of the Ethernet Switches.

• VTP pruning is not supported.

• There is a limit of 200 secure MAC addresses per module that can be supported by an EtherSwitch

HWIC.

Information About EtherSwitch HWICs

To configure the Cisco HWIC-4ESW and HWIC-D-9ESW EtherSwitch HWICs, you should understand the

following concepts:

• VLANs, page 3

• Inline Power for Cisco IP Phones, page 3

• Layer 2 Ethernet Switching, page 3

• 802.1x Authentication, page 3

• Spanning Tree Protocol, page 3

• Cisco Discovery Protocol, page 4