Vlan – Same MAC address on different VLANs

layer2mac addressswitchingvlan

I am facing a situation where on the core network I have around 15k MAC addresses, and on the edge switches (Access Layer), I am finding switches with 27k MAC addresses. Access switches are configured to allow one MAC address per interface, and if there is VoIP, two MAC addresses per interface.

Since this is a layer 2 network, I don't understand why I have more MAC addresses on the Access switches. I was able to find out
that some MAC addresses are on two VLANs at the same time, mainly MAC addresses that belong to VoIP phones, but so far I'm unable to find why this is happening.

Has anyone experienced a similar situation? If so, what was the reason or causes of such situation?

Best Answer

VoIP phones are actually switches, too, if they allow you to connect a PC. Limiting a switch interface to two MAC addresses when using a VoIP phone can be problematic because some VoIP phones use more than one MAC address for themselves (one for the phone itself, and one or two for the switch interfaces), then you have a MAC address for the PC connected to the phone, so it could use three or more MAC addresses on the switch interface.

As a switch, the phone negotiates a trunk to the switch to which it is connected, and a VoIP phone MAC address could appear on more than one VLAN.