Reference Guide

Interfaces | 447
Table 21-49 lists the various Layer 2 overheads found in FTOS and the number of bytes.
Link MTU and IP MTU considerations for port channels and VLANs are as follows.
Port Channels:
• All members must have the same link MTU value and the same IP MTU value.
• The port channel link MTU and IP MTU must be less than or equal to the link MTU and IP MTU
values configured on the channel members.
Example: If the members have a link MTU of 2100 and an IP MTU 2000, the port channel’s MTU values
cannot be higher than 2100 for link MTU or 2000 bytes for IP MTU.
VLANs:
• All members of a VLAN must have the same IP MTU value.
• Members can have different Link MTU values. Tagged members must have a link MTU 4 bytes higher
than untagged members to account for the packet tag.
• The VLAN link MTU and IP MTU must be less than or equal to the link MTU and IP MTU values
configured on the VLAN members.
Example: The VLAN contains tagged members with Link MTU of 1522 and IP MTU of 1500 and
untagged members with Link MTU of 1518 and IP MTU of 1500. The VLAN’s Link MTU cannot be
higher than 1518 bytes and its IP MTU cannot be higher than 1500 bytes.
Port-pipes
A port pipe is a Dell Force10 specific term for the hardware path that packets follow through a system. Port
pipes travel through a collection of circuits (ASICs) built into line cards and RPMs on which various
processing events for the packets occur. One or two port pipes process traffic for a given set of physical
interfaces or a port-set. The E300 only supports one port pipe per slot. On the E1200 and E600 each slot
has two port pipes with following specifications:
• 48 port line rate cards have two port pipes on the line card
• 48 port high density cards have only one port pipe on the line card
Table 21-49. Difference between Link MTU and IP MTU
Layer 2 Overhead Difference between Link MTU and IP MTU
Ethernet (untagged) 18 bytes
VLAN Tag 22 bytes
Untagged Packet with VLAN-Stack Header 22 bytes
Tagged Packet with VLAN-Stack Header 26 bytes