l2 vs vw

[sib2017]

Hi,

What is the differnce between l2 mode and vw mode 

Thanks

[jvalentine]

Check out the documentation here:

 - https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/documentation/71/pan-os/pan-os/networking/interface-deployments#739...

Let us know if you have any specific questions after reading that.  

[sib2017]

Hi,

Thank you for the quick reply .

the firewall now rewrites the inbound Port VLAN ID (PVID) number in a Cisco per-VLAN spanning tree (PVST+) or Rapid PVST+ bridge protocol data unit (BPDU) to the proper outbound VLAN ID number and forwards the BPDU out

What does it mean by the rewrite 

Thanks

[reaper]

in short:

a vwire acts as a "bump in the wire" so it does not 'participate' in network traffic, it simply forwards between the 2 interfaces (unless something needs to be blocked ofcourse 🙂 )

in layer2 mode, the port acts like a switch and can rewrite vlan tags, so packets incoming tagged with vlanID 200 can be egressed on vlan 300 for example. packets can also be received and sent out on any of the systems layer2 interfaces set to a specific vlan tag (so more than 1 interface can be in a specific vlan)