Allied Telesis AT-9000 Series - Manual (Page 89)

89
Chapter 7
Setting the Port Spanning Tree Protocol
The Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and the Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol
(RSTP) guard against the formation of loops in an Ethernet network
topology. A topology has a loop when two or more nodes can transmit
packets to each other over more than one data path. Packets can become
caught in repeating cycles, referred to as broadcast storms, that
needlessly consume network bandwidth and that can significantly reduce
network performance.
This chapter provides a brief description of the spanning tree protocols and
explains how to set spanning tree on a port. See the following sections:
 “Overview” on page 90
 “Displaying Port Spanning Tree Protocol Settings” on page 91
 “Modifying Port Spanning Tree Protocol Settings” on page 93
Note
For information about how to set a spanning tree protocol for the
switch, see Chapter 13, “Setting Switch Spanning Tree Protocols” on
page 147.
For more information about spanning tree, see Section VI: Spanning Tree
Protocols in the AlliedWare Plus Management Software Command Line
Interface User’s Guide.