CCNA Guide to Cisco

Networking Fundamentals
Fourth Edition

Chapter 12
Basic Switching and Switch
Configuration
 Objectives

• Explain the technology and media access control

method for Ethernet networks
• Explain network segmentation and basic traffic
management concepts
• Explain basic switching concepts and the operation
of Cisco switches
• Perform and verify switch configuration tasks
• Implement basic switch security

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 2

 Ethernet Operations

• Ethernet
– A network access method or media access method
– Originated by the University of Hawaii.
– Later adopted by Xerox Corporation in 1972.
– Standardized as IEEE 802.3 in the early 1980s.
• Today, Ethernet is:
– Most pervasive network access method in use
– Most commonly implemented media access method in
new LANs

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 3

 CSMA/CD

• Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision

Detection (CSMA/CD)
– Ethernet contention method
– Any station connected to a network can transmit
anytime a transmission is not present on the wire

• Interframe gap, or interpacket gap (IPG)

– After each transmitted signal, each station must wait a
minimum of 9.6 microseconds before transmitting
another packet

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 4

 CSMA/CD (continued)

• Collisions
– Two stations could listen to the wire simultaneously
and not sense a carrier signal
– Both stations might begin to transmit their data
simultaneously
– Once a collision is detected, the first station to detect
the collision transmits a 32-bit jam signal
• Tells all other stations not to transmit for a brief period
– The two stations that caused the collision use an
algorithm to enter a backoff period *

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 5

 CSMA/CD (continued)

• Collision domain
– The physical area in which a packet collision might
occur
– Routers, switches, bridges, and gateways segment
networks
• And thus create separate collision domains
– The 32-bit jam signal that is transmitted when the
collision is discovered prevents all stations on that
collision domain from transmitting

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 6

 CSMA/CD (continued)

• Broadcasts
– Stations on a network broadcast packets to other
stations to make their presence known on the network
• And to carry out normal network tasks!
– When a segment has too much broadcast traffic:
• Utilization increases
• Network performance in general suffers
• When broadcast traffic is above 10% of the available
network bandwidth. People may experience
– slower file transfers, e-mail access delays, and
slower Web access
CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 7
 CSMA/CD (continued)

• Broadcasts
– Simple ways to reduce broadcast traffic:
• Reduce the number of services that servers provides on
your network and limit the number of protocols in use on
your network
• You can also eliminate unnecessary protocols to
eliminate broadcast traffic on the network.
– IPX protocol on a server in an IP-only network

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 8

 CSMA/CD (continued)

• Broadcasts

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 9

 CSMA/CD (continued)

• Broadcast storm

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 10

 CSMA/CD (continued)

• Broadcast storm
– A sudden rush of network transmissions that causes
all other network communications to slow down
• Due to the volume of data competing for access to the
same bandwidth on the communication medium
• BC Storm occurs when 126 or more BC packets are
being transmitted per second
• One of the most common causes of broadcast
storms is a network loop

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 11

 NETWORK PERFORMANCE

• The three network performance metric affects

the performance of the network:
– Latency, or propagation delay
– Loss
– Jitter

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 12

 NETWORK PERFORMANCE

• Latency, or propagation delay

– The length of time that is required to forward, send,
or otherwise propagate a data frame
– Latency differs depending on the:
• Resistance offered by the transmission medium
• The number of nodes, and
• The amount of processing that must be done on the
packet (In the case of a connectivity device )

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 13

 NETWORK PERFORMANCE

• Transmission time
– The amount of time it takes for a packet to be sent
from one device to another.
– The latency of the devices and media between the two
hosts affects the transmission time.
– The more processing a device must perform on a data
packet, the higher the latency.
– The maximum latency for a repeater can be as high as 140
bit times

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 14

 Latency (continued)

Table 12-1 illustrates the maximum propagation delays for various media
and devices on an Ethernet network. The propagation delays shown illustrate
the maximum allowable round-trip delays for cabling and devices on a 100-
Mbps Ethernet network.

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 15

 Latency (continued)

• Bit time
– Refers to the amount of time required to transmit one
data bit on a network

• Slot time (512 bit times)

– An important specification that limits the physical size
of each Ethernet collision domain
– Specifies that all collisions should be detected from
anywhere in a network in less time than is required to
place a 64-byte frame on the network

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 16

 Latency (continued)

Speed Slot time[3] Time Interval

10 Mbit/s 512 bit times 51.2 microseconds
100 Mbit/s 512 bit times 5.12 microseconds
1 Gbit/s[4] 4096 bit times 4.096 microseconds
2.5 Gbit/s onward no half-duplex operation

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 17

 Ethernet Errors

1. Frame size errors

– Short frame or runt—A frame that is shorter than 64 bytes. A
collision, a faulty network adapter, corrupt NIC software drivers,
or a repeater fault can cause this error.
– Long frame or giant—A frame that is larger than 1518 bytes. A
collision, faulty network adapter, illegal hardware configuration,
transceiver or cable fault, termination problem, corrupt NIC
software drivers, repeater fault, or noise can cause this error.
– Jabber—This is another classification for giant or long frames.
This frame is longer than Ethernet standards allow and has an
incorrect frame check sequence (FCS)

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 18

 Ethernet Errors
2. Frame check sequence (FCS) error
– Indicates that bits of a frame were corrupted
during transmission
– Can be caused by any of the previously listed
errors
– Frame with an FCS error also has an octet
missing, it is called Alignment error

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 19

 Ethernet Errors (continued)

3. Collision errors
– Reducing the number of devices per collision domain
will usually solve the problem
• You can do this by segmenting your network with a
router, a bridge, or a switch
– Late collision
• Occurs when two stations transmit more than 64 bytes
of data frames before detecting a collision
• In other words, a late collision occurs when the slot time
of 512 bits has been exceeded
• Causes: too many repeaters, too long cable, device
malfunction.
CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 20
Half- and Full-Duplex Communications

• Half-duplex communications
– Devices can send and receive signals, but not at the
same time
• Full-duplex (or duplex) communications
– Devices can send and receive signals simultaneously
• Ethernet networks can use equipment that supports
half- and full-duplex communications

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 21

Half- and Full-Duplex Communications
(continued)
• Benefits of using full-duplex:
– Time is not wasted retransmitting frames because
collisions do not occur
– The full bandwidth is available in both directions
because the send and receive functions are
separate
– Stations do not have to wait until other stations
complete their transmissions because only one
transmitter is used for each twisted pair

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 22

 Half- and Full-Duplex Communications
(continued)
• On a Cisco Catalyst 2950 switch, you can set the
duplex capabilities port-by-port
• The four different duplex options are:
– Auto: default setting for 100-Mbps Ethernet ports
– Full: forces full-duplex mode on a 10- or 100-Mbps
port
– Full-flow control: used for 100Base-TX ports only
– Half: default setting for 10-Mbps Ethernet ports

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 23

 Ethernet Standards
Fast Ethernet Gigabit Ethernet 10-Gigabit Ethernet
802.3u 1000Base-TX (802.3ab) 802.3ae
100Base-TX 1000Base-SX (802.3z) 10GBase-SR
100Base-FX 1000Base-LX (802.3z) 10GBase-LR/ER
100Base-T4 1000Base-CX (802.3z),
CSMA/CD +Full Duplex CSMA/CD + Full Duplex Full Duplex Only
Support LAN to 2oom Support LAN to 5km Support LAN to 40km
Optical/cooper media Optical/cooper media Optical Only
8B/6B coding 8B/10B coding 64B/66B coding

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 24

 A Review of LAN Segmentation

• You can improve the performance of your Ethernet

network
– By reducing the number of stations per collision
domain
• Typically, network administrators implement bridges,
switches, or routers to segment the network and
divide the collision domains

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 25

 Segmenting with Bridges

• Bridge
– Segments a network by filtering traffic at the Data Link
layer
– Divides a network into two or more segments
• Only forwards a frame from one segment to another if
the frame is a broadcast or has the MAC address of a
station on a different segment
• Bridges learn MAC addresses by reading the source
MAC addresses from frames
– As the frames are passed across the bridge

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 26

 Segmenting with Bridges (continued)

• Bridging table
– Maps the MAC addresses on each segment to the
corresponding port on the bridge to which each
segment is connected
• Bridges increase latency, but because they
effectively divide the collision domain
– This does not affect slot time

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 27

 Segmenting with Bridges (continued)

• Remember these points:

– Bridges reduce collisions on the LAN and filter traffic
based on MAC addresses
– A bridge does not reduce broadcast or multicast
traffic
– A bridge can extend the useful distance of the
Ethernet LAN
– The bandwidth for the new individual segments is
increased
– Bridges can be used to limit traffic for security
purposes
CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 28
 Segmenting with Routers

• Router
– Operates at layer 3 of the OSI reference model
– Interprets the Network layer protocol and makes
forwarding decisions based on the layer 3 address
• Routers typically do not propagate broadcast traffic
– Thus, they reduce network traffic even more than
bridges do
• Routers maintain routing tables that include the
Network layer addresses of different segments

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 29

 Segmenting with Routers (continued)

• When you segment a LAN with routers, they will:

– Decrease collisions by filtering traffic
– Reduce broadcast and multicast traffic by blocking or
selectively filtering packets
– Support multiple paths and routes between them
– Provide increased bandwidth for the newly created
segments
– Increase security by preventing packets between
hosts on one side of the router from propagating to the
other side of the router

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 30

 Segmenting with Routers (continued)

• When you segment a LAN with routers, they will:

(continued)
– Increase the effective distance of the network by
creating new collision domains
– Provide layer 3 routing, packet fragmentation and
reassembly, and traffic flow control
– Provide communications between different
technologies, such as Ethernet and Token Ring or
Ethernet and Frame Relay
– Have a higher latency than bridges, because routers
have more to process; faster processors in the router
can reduce some of this latency
CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 31
 Segmentation with Switches

• Switches are often called multiport bridges

• Switch typically connects multiple stations
individually
– Thereby segmenting a LAN into multiple collision
domains
• Switches microsegment the network
– By connecting each port to an individual workstation
• Switched bandwidth
– Bandwidth is not shared as long as each workstation
connects to its own switch port

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 32

 Segmentation with Switches
(continued)

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 33

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 34
 Segmentation with Switches
(continued)
• Switch latency is typically higher than that of a
repeater or hub
– Faster processors and a variety of switching
techniques make switches typically faster than bridges
• Switches provide the following benefits:
– Reduction in network traffic and collisions
– Increase in available bandwidth per station
– Increase in the effective distance of a LAN by dividing
it into multiple collision domains
– Increased security, because unicast traffic is sent
directly to its destination
CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 35
 Switch Operations

• A switch learns the hardware address of devices to

which it is attached
– By reading the source address of frames as they are
transmitted across the switch
• The switch then matches the source MAC address
with the port from which the frame was sent
– The MAC-to-switch-port mapping is stored in the
switch’s content-addressable memory (CAM)
• The switch uses a memory buffer to store frames
as it determines to which port(s) a frame will be
forwarded
CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 36
 Switch Operations (continued)

• Types of memory buffering:

– Port-based memory buffering
– Shared memory buffering
• Asymmetric switching
– Some switches can interconnect network interfaces of
different speeds
• Symmetric switching
– Switches that require all attached network interface
devices to use the same transmit/receive speed

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 37

 Switching Methods

• All switches base frame-forwarding decisions on a

frame’s destination MAC address
• The three main methods for processing and
forwarding frames are:
– Cut-through, store-and-forward, and fragment-free
• One additional forwarding method, adaptive cut-
through forwarding
– A combination of the cut-through and store-and-
forward methods

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 38

 Cut-Through Forwarding

• Switches that use cut-through forwarding start

sending a frame immediately after reading the
destination MAC address into their buffers
• The main benefit of cut-through forwarding is a
reduction in latency
• The drawback is the potential for errors in the frame
that the switch would be unable to detect
– Because the switch only reads a small portion of the
frame into its buffer

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 39

 Cut-Through Forwarding (continued)

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 40

 Store-and-Forward Forwarding

• Store-and-forward switches read the entire frame,

no matter how large, into their buffers before
forwarding
• Because the switch reads the entire frame, it will not
forward frames with errors
• The store-and-forward method has the highest
latency

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 41

 Store-and-Forward Forwarding
(continued)

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 42

 Fragment-Free Forwarding

• Fragment-free forwarding represents an effort to

provide more error-reducing benefits than cut-
through switching
– While keeping latency lower than does store-and-
forward switching
• A fragment-free switch reads the first 64 bytes of an
Ethernet frame
– And then begins forwarding it to the appropriate
port(s)

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 43

Fragment-Free Forwarding (continued)

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 44

Fragment-Free Forwarding (continued)

• Adaptive cut-through
– For the most part, the adaptive cut-through switch will
act as a cut-through switch
• To provide the lowest latency
– However, if a certain level of errors is detected, the
switch will:
• Change forwarding techniques
• Act more as a store-and-forward switch

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 45

 Switch User Interface

• You can connect to a Cisco switch in the same way

you connect to a Cisco router
• The Cisco switch has a console port to which you
can connect your laptop or PC
• Once you power on the switch you will be in the
command-line interface
– You can configure anything from the command line

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 46

 Modes and Passwords

• You cannot actually configure a switch until you get

to enable mode
• To enter enable mode, type enable at the
command-line prompt and then press Enter
• The first step in configuring a switch is to set up a
password
• To start configuration mode, first type configure
terminal or config t at the command prompt
• You can also configure a secret (encrypted)
password
CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 47
 Setting the Host Name

• The actual task of setting the host name on the

Cisco Catalyst switch is identical to setting the host
name on a Cisco router
• To configure this name, you would type:
– Switch(config)#hostname name
• Once the host name is set, the prompt will change to
reflect the name of the switch

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 48

 IP on the Switch

• By default, Cisco switches are not configured with

IP addresses
– Generally speaking, a switch does not require an IP
address
• Because switches operate mainly on Layer 2
• You may want to configure an IP address for your
switch so that you can manage it over the
network
• Also, you may need to configure an IP address for
your switch if you want to implement VLANs on
your network
CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 49
 Configuring Switch Ports

• To enter interface configuration mode for the first

port of a switch named Rm410HL, you would use
the following commands:
– Rm410HL#configure terminal
– Rm410HL(config)#interface f0/1
– Rm410HL(config-if)#
• To view the configuration of a port, use the show
command

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 50

 Configuring Switch Ports (continued)

• Configuring the duplex mode

– You would use the following command to set the
duplex mode:
• Rm410HL#configure terminal
• Rm410HL(config)#interface f0/24
• Rm410HL(config-if)#duplex full

Some situations, leaving the switch to detect the duplex mode

automatically works fine (this is called “auto detect”). However,
sometimes you will need to hard codedcode the duplex mode.

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 51

 Securing Switch Ports

• You can choose from several degrees of security

on a switch
– First, you can configure a permanent MAC
address for a specific port on your switch
– Second, you could define a static MAC address
entry into your switching table
• Which maps a restricted communication path between
two ports
• To configure port security, you first must enter the
interface configuration mode

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 52

 Securing Switch Ports (continued)
• You can display several options by typing the
following command:
– Rm410HL(config-if)#switchport port-security ?
– Options include aging (Absolute, inactivity, by
default disabled), mac-address (H.H.H.H,
Sticky), maximum (1-6144), and violation
(Protect, restrict, shutdown)
• To turn switchport security off, use:
– Rm410HL(config-if)#no switchport port-security
• To clear the settings to include erasing the static
MAC addresses, use the clear command:
– Rm410HL(config-if)#clear port-security

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 53

 Summary

• Ethernet (CSMA/CD) is a media access method

that was developed in the 1960s
• Stations on an Ethernet LAN must listen to the
network media before transmitting to ensure that
no other station is currently transmitting
• If two stations transmit simultaneously on the same
collision domain, a collision will occur
• The transmitting stations must be able to recognize
the collision and ensure that other stations know
about it by transmitting a jam signal

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 54

 Summary (continued)

• The delays caused by collisions on a network can

seriously affect performance when collisions
exceed 5% of the traffic on the collision domain
• Switches do the most to divide the collision domain
and reduce traffic without dividing the broadcast
domain
• A switch microsegments unicast traffic
• Another way to increase the speed at which a LAN
operates is to upgrade from Ethernet to Fast
Ethernet
• Full duplex can also improve Ethernet performance
CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 55
 Summary (continued)

• Full duplex allows frames to be sent and received

simultaneously
• As with Fast Ethernet, full-duplex operations are
only supported by devices designed for this type of
communication
• The two types of operating systems on Cisco
switches are IOS-based and set-based
• Configuring a switch is similar to configuring a
router through the CLI
• Switches can provide some level of security
through the use of port security commands
CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 56
 Required reading

• Chapter 12 of the text book

CCNA Guide to Cisco Networking Fundamentals, Fourth Edition 57