Spanning Tree Protocol(STP)
Outline
1. Why STP ?
2. High level Overview of STP
3. Port Roles
4. Port States
5. Electing Root Bridge, Root Ports and Designated Ports
6. Default Timers
Why STP?
● STP is used to prevent loops when using redundant switches
● Because of loops Broadcast messages are sent all the time
and Broadcast Storms are easy to trigger
● Loops also cause unstable MAC address tables because
they're constantly being changed/updated
● Duplicate frames are being sent to the same host.
Topology
High Level Overview of STP
1) Elect a root bridge
2) Place root bridge interfaces into a Forwarding state
3) Each non-root switch selects its Root Port
- This is the best route to the bridge
4) Remaining links choose a Designated Port
5) All other ports are put into a Blocking state
Port Roles
● Root Ports
-The best port to reach the Root Bridge
● Designated Port
- Port with the best route to the Root Bridge on a link
● Non-Designated Ports
- All other ports that are in a blocking state
Port States
● Disabled
● Blocking
● Listening
● Learning
● Forwarding
Root Bridge Election
● Each switch has a BPDU. BPDU contains:
○ Cost of the root bridge
● BID (Bridge ID)
○ The switch with the lowest overall BID will become the root
bridge
● They share their BPDUs with each other
● Once they all agree, the root bridge has been elected
Root Port Election
● Each non-root switch will now choose the best path to
the root bridge
● This is the Root Port
● This is based on Port Cost
Designated Port Election
● Select port apart from root ports which have least cost
to the root bridge.
● Every port that is not a root port of designated port is
put in a Blocking State
Default Timers
● Hello
○ Every 2 seconds
○ Lets everyone know everything is still alive
● MaxAge
○ 10x Hello timer by default (20 seconds)
○ The time the switch will wait before it realizes something is
wrong
● Forward Delay
○ 15 seconds
○ The time taken by the Listening and Learning state
Thank You
