Network Skills / CCNA 200-301 Tutorials / Inter-VLAN Routing Tutorial

Inter-VLAN Routing Tutorial

6 min read

The previous tutorial covered how VLANs segment a network into separate logical broadcast domains. This one picks up from there and looks at InterVLAN routing — how devices in different VLANs actually reach each other.

What is InterVLAN routing?

As covered previously, devices within the same VLAN can reach each other without any Layer 3 routing involved. Devices in different VLANs, though, need a Layer 3 device in the path to communicate. In the topology below, host A and host B — both in VLAN 10 — can talk to each other with no router required; host C and host D, both in VLAN 20, can do the same. But host A can’t reach host C or host D at all, since they sit in a different VLAN.

Hosts A and B in VLAN 10 communicate directly; hosts C and D in VLAN 20 communicate directly; but VLAN 10 and VLAN 20 cannot reach each other without a router
Devices in the same VLAN reach each other directly; devices in different VLANs cannot — not without routing.
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