That partially answers some of the questions. It details that you have to mark ports tagged in both VLANs but I'm not sure about switch_2 requiring a VLAN3 in order to know how to route data through to switch_1 - I'm assuming switch_2 would contain a VLAN3 which contains nothing more than port1 and port5 tagged??
In short, do all switches need contain an appropriate VLAN entry even though none of the ports on a particular switch belongs to a VLAN so that this provides a route through for VLANS up or downstream???
Ideally I wouldn't have daisy chained these as Im aware there are a few issues doing it this way but I had not choice in this situation owing to distance and physical routing. There is no intention of adding more as if more capacity was required, I'd expand the number of ports at each switch as and when necessary
In short, do all switches need contain an appropriate VLAN entry even though none of the ports on a particular switch belongs to a VLAN so that this provides a route through for VLANS up or downstream???
Ideally I wouldn't have daisy chained these as Im aware there are a few issues doing it this way but I had not choice in this situation owing to distance and physical routing. There is no intention of adding more as if more capacity was required, I'd expand the number of ports at each switch as and when necessary