Spanning Tree Protocol

Radia thought about this problem.

She knew there had to be a way to help messages find the right path, so she invented something called the Spanning Tree Protocol, or STP.

You can think of it like a smart map for computers.

STP helps computers figure out the best way to send messages without getting stuck or lost.

Let's look at the history.

The legacy way of spanning a layer two segment is using spanning tree protocol or STP.

Did old spanning tree.

Right.

So instead of not looking at it and maybe pretending I only need to know a little bit of it, you probably need to wrap your arms around this one.

and really understand, OK, what is spanning tree? What is rapid spanning tree protocol? What are the differences? Why are these important? How do I configure them? What are some problems with configurations? What are some ways I can manage the configuration better? Spanning tree, it's just one of those things.

It's going to walk around with you the rest of your life.

That's just the way spanning tree is.

This MAC address is off of that port.

We start building out that spanning tree interface by learning that information, but we're not yet forwarding any information.

It spends a bit of time learning these details, spends more time learning on the spanning tree protocol than it does on the rapid spanning tree protocol.

Rapid spanning tree protocol almost immediately starts forwarding traffic.