Planning and Implementing VLANs with HP-UX

Figure 3 VLANs Overlapping or Sharing the Same LAN Card Port
PowerRun Attn. Fault Remote
Server
VLAN0 VLAN5
VLAN-aware Ethernet
LAN Card Port
VLANs on HP-UX
HP-UX allows users to configure VLAN tagging and association rules at end stations. An efficient
implementation of this mechanism has been developed, allowing network administrators to
make full use of the advantages of VLANs and VLAN tagging with minimal performance impact.
Features and Advantages
A high-level summary of the features and advantages of using HP-UX VLANs includes the
following:
• Host-based IEEE 802.1Q-compliant VLAN tagging
• Supported on HP’s PCI and HSC Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet (1000Base-T and
1000Base-SX) NICs with a free software upgrade (via patches)
• IP subnet-based, protocol-based, and port-based VLAN support
• Support for 802.1p priority encoding
• Configuration using standard HP-UX tools
• IP ToS—802.1p priority conversion
• 1024 VLANs per NIC port
• Designed to work seamlessly with HP Auto Port Aggregation (APA) and HP’s high
availability products, such as HP Serviceguard
• No changes to network applications are required
• Preserves VLAN configuration across reboot
• Supported on HP-UX 11i
Implementing VLANs on HP-UX
HP-UX implements VLAN tagging via a mechanism called virtual interfaces (VIs). On each NIC
port, you may configure multiple VIs, each of which is associated with a unique VLAN ID and
802.1p priority value. Each VI is assigned a virtual PPA (Physical Point of Attachment), which
can then be used just like any other PPA—for configuring protocols or attaching to applications,
and so on. If you are not familiar with the term PPA, refer to the lan manual page on a system
running HP-UX, by running the command man lan(7).
Common Usage Scenarios
Common types of usage scenarios for VLANs on HP-UX include: port-based VLANs,
protocol-based VLANs, and IP subnet-based VLANs. Before figuring out which usage scenario
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