802.1Q VLAN tagging

IEEE 802.1Q, often referred to as Dot1q, is the networking standard that supports virtual LANs (VLANs) on an IEEE 802.3 Ethernet network. The standard defines a system of VLAN tagging for Ethernet frames and the accompanying procedures to be used by bridges and switches in handling such frames. The standard also contains provisions for a quality-of-service prioritization scheme commonly known as IEEE 802.1p and defines the .

Portions of the network which are VLAN-aware (i.e., IEEE 802.1Q conformant) can include VLAN tags. When a frame enters the VLAN-aware portion of the network, a tag is added to represent the VLAN membership. Each frame must be distinguishable as being within exactly one VLAN. A frame in the VLAN-aware portion of the network that does not contain a VLAN tag is assumed to be flowing on the native VLAN.

The standard was developed by IEEE 802.1, a working group of the IEEE 802 standards committee, and continues to be actively revised. One of the notable revisions is 802.1Q-2014 which incorporated IEEE 802.1aq (Shortest Path Bridging) and much of the IEEE 802.1D standard.

802.1Q adds a 32-bit field between the source MAC address and the EtherType fields of the original frame. The minimum frame size is left unchanged at 64 bytes. The maximum frame size is extended from 1,518 bytes to 1,522 bytes. Two bytes are used for the tag protocol identifier (TPID), the other two bytes for tag control information (TCI). The TCI field is further divided into PCP, DEI, and VID.

For frames using IEEE 802.2/ encapsulation with an organizationally unique identifier (OUI) field of 00-00-00 (so that the protocol ID field in the SNAP header is an EtherType), as would be the case on LANs other than Ethernet, the EtherType value in the SNAP header is set to 0x8100 and the aforementioned extra 4 bytes are appended after the SNAP header.

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