How to Configure Voice VLAN on Omada Switches using an Omada Controller
Contents
This article introduces the configuration of Voice VLAN on Omada switches when using Omada Controller to manage the devices.
- Omada Smart, L2+ and L3 switches
- Omada Controller (Software Controller / Hardware Controller / Cloud Based Controller, V5.9 and above)
This article concerns configuring Voice VLAN on Omada switches when using the Omada Controller to manage the devices. For the configuration without the Omada Controller, please refer to the FAQ: How to configure Voice VLAN to optimize the transmission of voice traffic on TP-Link Smart and Managed Switches using the new GUI.
As IP phones are widely used, configurations on switches are needed to ensure the experience when using IP phones to avoid lags, quality degradation, jitter, or noise. Voice traffic is time-sensitive, so we need to configure a voice VLAN for the specific usage of voice traffic and prioritize the packets to ensure they are forwarded in time. Therefore, the quality of phone calls can be assured.
Voice VLAN uses OUI to match the packets sent by the IP phones and tag them with a designated VLAN ID and 802.1p priority, which results in all the voice traffic running in a separate VLAN and could be forwarded before other traffic.
Step 1. Adopt the switch on the Omada Controller.
First, the switches directly connected to the IP phones should be adopted.
Step 2. Create an 802.1Q VLAN for the use of voice VLAN.
To assign a VLAN as a voice VLAN, we must first create an 802.1Q VLAN. Go to Settings>Wired Networks>LAN>Networks, click Create New LAN, and create a new VLAN. You can choose to configure it as an interface or a VLAN. When deciding to create an interface, a TP-Link gateway needs to be adopted in the controller. Here, I only adopted the switch to show the configuration, so I will create it as a VLAN and apply it to switches only.
For other parameters, keep the default or configure it as you need.
Step 3. Create a new port profile.
After creating the voice VLAN 2, the default port profile “all” will be automatically changed to VLAN1 untagged, PVID=1, and VLAN 2 tagged; however, we need to let VLAN 2 be untagged on this port, too, so a new port profile is required.
Go to Settings>Wired Networks>LAN>Switch Profile, click Create New Port Profile, and add the voice VLAN to the untagged networks column.
Step 4. Apply the new port profile to the port connecting to IP phones.
Go to the Devices page and click the switch to enter its private configuration page. In Ports, change this port profile for the ports you are connecting to IP phones, and you want to enable Voice VLAN; for example, here, I will change port 1’s port profile to the new one.
The configuration of Voice VLAN on the Controller GUI has been finished. We need to use CLI templates to issue the commands to the switches.
Step 5. Edit the CLI commands.
The CLI commands should include these configurations:
- Enable Voice VLAN on the switch globally.
- Assign an 802.1Q VLAN as the Voice VLAN.
- Enable Voice VLAN on the downlink ports (directly connected to IP phones).
- Configure the 802.1p priority of Voice VLAN.
Note: Check if your device’s OUI is included in the OUI table; if not, add it manually.
In this example, the Voice VLAN I created is VLAN 2, and on this switch, I’m connecting the IP phones on port 1, and I want to set its 802.1p priority to 7, which is the highest. The CLI commands go like this:
voice vlan 2
interface gigabitEthernet 1/0/1
voice vlan
#
voice vlan priority 7
Step 6. Check if your device’s OUI is included in the default OUI table.
You can connect the console cable or the terminal from the Controller to log into the CLI of a switch; the Controller’s terminal is located in Tools > Terminal. Change the Device Type to Switch, in Sources, choose this switch, then click Open Terminal.
In the terminal, enter “show voice vlan oui-table” under privileged EXEC Mode (enter “en” after logged in) to check the current OUI table and see if your device’s OUI is included, below shows the default OUI we offer:
You need to check if your device’s OUI is included in this default OUI table; if not, add it manually.
For example, my device’s OUI is 00-E0-4C, which is not included, so by manually adding the OUI, the whole command should go like:
voice vlan 2
interface gigabitEthernet 1/0/1
voice vlan
#
voice vlan priority 7
voice vlan oui 00:E0:4C oui-desc TP-Test
You can also finish the configuration on the GUI without using the Omada Controller, export the config file, and copy these commands from the config file to ensure there’s no error.
Step 7. Create the CLI template and issue the configuration to devices.
Go to Settings>CLI Configuration>Device CLI, click Create New Device CLI Profile and edit.
Click Next and select the device on which you want to apply the commands; click Confirm to select.
Click Save. Now the CLI is still inactive, click Apply to start the application process.
Connect the terminal and enter “show running-config” to check if these commands are successfully applied.
You can also click the “show running config” button on the Devices page (Controller V5.14 and later)
Here, the running config includes the commands I have just applied, which means the configuration is finished.
The configuration of Voice VLAN has finished, and it should be working normally now; if you are interested, you can follow the steps below to validate:
I have added OUI 00:E0:4C to the OUI table, so I can now use the device with this OUI to send packets and validate whether the Voice VLAN is taking effect.
Currently, all the ports’ native VLANs are VLAN1, which means the packets should be captured without VLAN tags, but if the Voice VLAN is taking effect, the packets from this device will be tagged with VLAN 2 and 802.1p priority 7.
Voice VLAN is now enabled on port 1, so connect the device to port 1 and send normal IPv4 unicast packets, then use port mirroring to capture.
The results should be as below. From the screenshot, you can see that this packet’s source MAC address matches the OUI we have just set. It has a VLAN tag with 802.1p priority 7 and VLAN ID 2, the same as the parameters we have configured for the Voice VLAN, which means the Voice VLAN is working.
Please note that network adapters on Windows may discard the 802.1Q VLAN header. If you find that the packets you captured are untagged, please check if your network adapter captures the VLAN tags normally by sending some tagged packets or monitoring the traffic in other VLANs.
We have finished introducing the configuration of Voice VLAN on Omada switches through Omada Controller and provided a simple verification. If there’s still a problem, please contact TP-Link Technical Support.
To learn more about each function and configuration, please go to the Download Center to download the manual of your product.
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