VLAN Management
224 Cisco 350, 350X and 550X Series Managed Switches, Firmware Release 2.4, ver 0.4
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• Community (host)—Community ports can define a group of ports that are member in 
the same Layer 2 domain. They are isolated at Layer 2 from other communities and 
from isolated ports. These ports connect host ports.
• Isolated (host)—An isolated port has complete Layer 2 isolation from the other 
isolated and community ports within the same private VLAN. These ports connect host 
ports.
The following types of private VLANs exist:
• Primary VLAN—The primary VLAN is used to enable Layer 2 connectivity from 
promiscuous ports to isolated and to community ports. There can only be a single 
primary VLAN per private VLAN.
• Isolated VLAN (also known as a Secondary VLAN)—An isolated VLAN is used to 
enable isolated ports to send traffic to the primary VLAN. There can only be a single, 
isolated VLAN per private VLAN. 
• Community VLAN (also known as a Secondary VLAN)—To create a sub-group of 
ports (community) within a VLAN, the ports must be added a community VLAN. The 
community VLAN is used to enable Layer 2 connectivity from community ports to 
promiscuous ports and to community ports of the same community. There can be a 
single community VLAN for each community and multiple community VLANs can 
coexist in the system for the same private VLAN). 
See  Figure 1 and  Figure 2 for samples of how these VLANs are used.
Host traffic is sent on isolated and community VLANs, while server and router traffic is sent 
on the primary VLAN.
Shared MAC address learning exists between all the VLANs that are members in the same 
private VLAN (although the switch supports independent VLAN learning). This enables 
Unicast traffic, despite the fact that host MAC addresses are learned by isolated and 
community VLANs, while routers and server MAC addresses are learned by the primary 
VLAN.
A private VLAN-port can only be added to one private VLAN. Other port types, such as 
access or trunk ports, can be added to the individual VLANs that make up the private VLAN 
(since they are regular 802.1Q VLANs). 
A private VLAN can be configured to span across multiple switches by setting inter-switch 
ports as trunk ports and adding them to all VLANs in the private VLAN. Inter-switch trunk 
ports send and receive tagged traffic of the private VLAN’s various VLANs (primary, isolated 
and the communities).
The switch supports 16 primary VLANs and 256 secondary VLANs.