802.1Q Native VLAN on Cisco IOS Switch

The IEEE 802.1Q trunking protocol describes something called the native VLAN. All native VLAN traffic is untagged; it doesn’t have an 802.1Q tag on the Ethernet frame. When you look at it in Wireshark, it will look the same, just like any standard Ethernet frame.

When your Cisco switches receive an Ethernet frame without a tag on an 802.1Q-enabled interface, it will assume it belongs to the native VLAN. For this reason, you need to make sure that the native VLAN is the same on both sides.

By default, VLAN 1 is the native VLAN. We can change this if we want. Let’s look at an example. I will use two switches for this:

I will configure an 802.1Q trunk between those two switches so we can look at the native VLAN:

SW1(config)#interface Fastethernet 0/24
SW1(config-if)#switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
SW1(config-if)#switchport mode trunk

SW2(config)#interface Fastethernet 0/24
SW2(config-if)#switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
SW2(config-if)#switchport mode trunk

We can verify our trunk configuration and see the native VLAN like this:

SW1#show interface fastEthernet 0/24 trunk

Port        Mode             Encapsulation  Status        Native vlan
Fa0/24      on               802.1q         trunking      1

Port        Vlans allowed on trunk
Fa0/24      1-4094

Port        Vlans allowed and active in management domain
Fa0/24      1,10,12-13,20,23,34,100,123

Port        Vlans in spanning tree forwarding state and not pruned
Fa0/24      1,10,12-13,20,23,34,100,123

SW2#show interfaces fastEthernet 0/24 trunk

Port        Mode             Encapsulation  Status        Native vlan
Fa0/24      on               802.1q         trunking      1

Port        Vlans allowed on trunk
Fa0/24      1-4094

Port        Vlans allowed and active in management domain
Fa0/24      1,10,12-13,20,23-24,30

Port        Vlans in spanning tree forwarding state and not pruned
Fa0/24      1,10,12-13,20,23-24,30

Above, you can see that the trunk is operational, we are using 802.1Q encapsulation, and the native VLAN is 1. So what kind of traffic is running on the native VLAN? Let’s take a look at a Wireshark capture of our trunk!

As you can see, some management protocols like CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol) are sent on the native VLAN. For security reasons, it might be a good idea to change the native VLAN from VLAN 1 to something else. You can do it like this:

SW1(config)#interface fastEthernet 0/24
SW1(config-if)#switchport trunk native vlan 10

SW2(config)#interface fastEthernet 0/24
SW2(config-if)#switchport trunk native vlan 10

Instead of VLAN 1, we will now use VLAN 10 as the native VLAN. Let’s verify our work:

SW1#show interfaces fastEthernet 0/24 trunk 

Port        Mode             Encapsulation  Status        Native vlan
Fa0/24      on               802.1q         trunking      10

SW2#show interfaces fastEthernet 0/24 trunk 

Port        Mode             Encapsulation  Status        Native vlan
Fa0/24      on               802.1q         trunking      10

There we go. VLAN 10 is now the native VLAN. Last but not least, we can also configure our switches to tag the native VLAN just like any other VLAN. Here’s how to do it:

SW1(config)#vlan dot1q tag native

SW2(config)#vlan dot1q tag native

That’s all there is to it! Hopefully, this lesson has been helpful to you in understanding the native VLAN and how to configure it.

hostname SW1
!
interface Fastethernet 0/24
 switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
 switchport mode trunk
 switchport trunk native vlan 10
!
vlan dot1q tag native
!
end

hostname SW2
!
interface Fastethernet 0/24
 switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
 switchport mode trunk
 switchport trunk native vlan 10
!
vlan dot1q tag native
!
end