Planet IGSW-2840 User Manual page 150

Creating a Stable STP Topology
It is to make the root port a fastest link. If all switches have STP enabled with default settings, the switch with the lowest MAC
address in the network will become the root switch. By increasing the priority (lowering the priority number) of the best switch,
STP can be forced to select the best switch as the root switch.
When STP is enabled using the default parameters, the path between source and destination stations in a switched network
might not be ideal. For instance, connecting higher-speed links to a port that has a higher number than the current root port can
cause a root-port change.
STP Port States
The BPDUs take some time to pass through a network. This propagation delay can result in topology changes where a port that
transitioned directly from a Blocking state to a Forwarding state could create temporary data loops. Ports must wait for new
network topology information to propagate throughout the network before starting to forward packets. They must also wait for
the packet lifetime to expire for BPDU packets that were forwarded based on the old topology. The forward delay timer is used to
allow the network topology to stabilize after a topology change. In addition, STP specifies a series of states a port must
transition through to further ensure that a stable network topology is created after a topology change.
Each port on a switch using STP exists is in one of the following five states:

Blocking – the port is blocked from forwarding or receiving packets

Listening – the port is waiting to receive BPDU packets that may tell the port to go back to the blocking state

Learning – the port is adding addresses to its forwarding database, but not yet forwarding packets

Forwarding – the port is forwarding packets

Disabled – the port only responds to network management messages and must return to the blocking state first
A port transitions from one state to another as follows:

From initialization (switch boot) to blocking

From blocking to listening or to disabled

From listening to learning or to disabled

From learning to forwarding or to disabled

From forwarding to disabled

From disabled to blocking
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User's Manual of IGSW-2840