Spanning Tree Protocol

Objective
After completing this section, youll be able to:

Describe Spanning Tree Protocol

Bridge Ids and Root Selection

BPDU format

Bridge and Port Definitions

Port States and Convergence

Describe Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol

New BPDU format

Port States and Convergence

Topology Change Behaviour

Describe Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol

Vlan Instances

2
Regions
Table of Contents

1. Spanning Tree Protocol - principles

2. Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol
3. Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol

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1 Spanning Tree Protocol - Principles

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What is Redundancy and Why?

100 percent uptime is perhaps impossible, but many organizations

try to achieve 99.99 percent.
To achieve such a goal requires extremely reliable networks.
Redundancy is needed to eliminate network outages caused by point
of failures.

Failure on forwarding link!

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Redundancy is needed- How about loops?

Broadcast and multicast frames are flooded out all ports, except the
one on which the frame was received. That will result in broadcast
storms. (NO TTL in L2 !)

!!! LOOP

SOLUTION! --- To create Logical Loop Free Topologies.

802.1D Bridge Protocol

Interconnection of IEEE 802 LANs

Includes Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

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Spanning Tree Protocol

Ethernet switches can implement the IEEE 802.1d

Spanning-Tree Protocol and use algorithm to construct a
loop free shortest path network.
Algorithm based on: Cost, Priority, Mac-Address

X
X

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 Root Switch Election

All switches send BPDUs to elect the Root Switch

Lowest Priority
ROOT SWITCH
Via BPDU: Priority = 4096

Cost
Cost 1G
Bridge ID 100 M
Bridge ID

Priority = 32K

1. Priority
Priority = 32K
2. Mac-Address

100 M

10 M

Priority = 32K

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Bridge ID Format

Bridge ID is used to identify each switch. The lower BID in the

switched network will be elected as Root Bridge.
When BIDs are received by all switches, each switch replaces higher
Root-IDs with lower Root-IDs in the BPDUs sent out.
Network Administrators can set switch priority to elect root bridge.

Bridge
MAC-Address
Priority

2 Bytes 6 Bytes
Range: 0 65,535
Default: 32768

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BPDU and Bridge ID

First decision is to select Root Bridge

BPDUs are sent out from each switch with Bridge IDs (BID).

BID consists of Bridge Priority and Mac-Address of the switch.

By default, BPDUs are sent every two seconds.

Root BID Who is the Root Bridge ?

How far away is the Root Bridge?

Root Path Cost
Sender BID What is the BID of the switch?

Port ID What Port did the switch use for

sending this BPDU?

BPDU
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Port Roles

After Root Switch election; port roles are defined.

R If receiving best BPDU on segment

Lowest Priority
ROOT SWITCH D If sending best BPDU on segment

D D

100 M 1G
R
R

D
100 M
Alternate port 10 M
(Blocked)

X R

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Spanning Tree Port Stages

LINK is UP

BLOCKING
Loss of BDPU- Default aging time 20 sec

LISTENING
15 sec No Traffic

LEARNING
No BPDU 15 sec- Mac@ learnt- No Traffic
Anymore

FORWARDING

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Spanning Tree Protocol Convergence Topology Change

2nd: The Root

advertises the
1st: TC is TCA for
generated and max_age +
sent to Root. forward_delay

TC BPDU TCA TCA

X

TC : Topology change
TCA: TC Ack

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STP Convergence Time

A switched network with STP has converged only when all ports are
rather in Blocking or Forwarding State.
Blocking ports only receive BPDUs.
Forwarding ports receive BPDUs, they also send and receive traffic.

When the topology changes, the switches have to recalculate the

spanning-tree process.
Convergence can take up to 50 seconds. (Max-age=20 sec, Listening
delay 15 sec, Learning delay=15 sec)

Thats why, amendment needed at STP

RSTP
MSTP

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2 Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol

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Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol - States

Defined in IEEE 802.1w LAN Standard

Disabled, Blocking and Listening Modes are merged in Discarding State
only.

Is Port Included in Is Port Learning

STP RSTP
Active Topology? Mac-Addresses?

Disabled Discarding No No
Blocking Discarding No No
Listening Discarding No No
Learning Learning Yes Yes
Forwarding Forwarding Yes Yes
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(Rapid) Spanning Tree Protocol - BPDU Format

RSTP BPDU is version 2.

Legacy Switches will drop version 2 BPDUs.

Detection of legacy switches.

TC and TCA parts stay the same in version 2.

The interpretation of the BPDU frame is improved.
More information on BPDU within RSTP.
0 7

Proposal
TC TCA
Port Role
Learning
Forwarding
17 Agreement
During Topology Change BPDU Handling

STP RSTP
BPDU Non-root bridge only transmits Bridge sends BPDU on all ports
handling BPDUs when it receives one on the
root port

BPDU Aging BPDU is aged after the max-age BPDUs are used like keepalive
timer expires (when no BPDU is messages (after 3 BPDUs in a row are
received on the port) missed it ages it out)

Transition to Based on timers (Forward Delay and Uses a feedback mechanism (no timers
forwarding Max-Age) involved) --- Sync Process
state

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Example: Inferior BPDUs Convergence for Indirect Links

Priority = 32K

Priority = 4096
A
Blocking
B Listening
Forwarding
Better
BPDU
X
DC
BPDU
D
I am the ROOT
Priority = 16K

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Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol - Link Designations

LINK TYPE
(SHARED)

EDGETYPE
(P2P)

EDGETYPE
LINK TYPE (SHARED)
(P2P)

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Topology Change Detection and Propagation

Only non-edge ports that move to the forwarding state cause TCs.

When RSTP is aware of a TC:

1.It starts a TC While Timer with a value of 2 times of hello-time for all
designated ports and root port. During the TC While Timer count down,
the BPDUs on that ports are sent with a set TC bit including the root
ports.

2.It flushes all Mac-Addresses associated with all ports.

The initiator of the TC floods as opposed to STP where only the root
did.

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 STP vs. RSTP Topology Change Behaviour

STP RSTP
Topology Sends TC BPDUs towards root Sends BPDUs (with TC bit set) on
change all designated and root ports

Topology Replies with BPDU with TCA bit No acknowledgement (clears MAC
ACKs set from Root addresses on all ports)

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 Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol Sync Process

1. Designated Port in discarding or learning state, it sets the proposal bit on BPDUs it
sends out.
2. Switch-A gets a superior information, it sets p1 as root port . Then, Switch-A starts
sync process to see all the ports are updated or not with latest information.

3. After sync, Switch-A sends agreement setting the bit at BPDU. --- A copy of the
same BPDU from root switch. This time, the agreement bit is set in BPDU message.
PROCESS COMPLETED
Note: Now p0 and p1 are in
forwarding state.
1: Proposal
3: Agreement, p1 p0
Forwarding

R p1

p0: designated port

p2 p4
P3 p1: new root port

X p2: alternate port

2: sync p3: ORIGINAL root port
2: sync 2: sync
(unchanged) (block) (unchanged) p4: edge port
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Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol Convergence

SYNC
PROCESS
D
X
B
R

D R B
R
X
R
B D D
R

EDGETYPE
EDGETYPE

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3 Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol

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How about Multiple VLAN situation?

(R)STP concludes
to block the link
between Sw-A and
Sw-C

X
VLAN 200
VLAN 200
VLAN 100 VLAN 100

PC-B
PC-A

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Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol

MSTP will define

different paths with
instances.

X
X VLAN 200
VLAN 200
VLAN 100 VLAN 100
VLAN 200

PC-A PC-B
INSTANCE 1
INSTANCE 2
VLAN: 100, ...
VLAN: 200, ...
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 What is MSTP Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol

Defines an extension to the RSTP protocol to further develop

the usefulness of virtual LANs (VLANs).

MSTP is VLAN aware

If there is only one VLAN in the network, single STP works

appropriately. If the network contains more than one VLAN,
we can go for MSTP.

Here we call one STP as one instance. One loop per instance
will be there. One spanning Tree per instance.

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Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol - Regions

M-records contain VLAN

individual parameters Instances
about each MSTI
(root bridge ID, root MST Region
path cost, etc)
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Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol - Regions

X
MST Region

Different MST Regions

will be treated as
different virtual At boundary ports no
bridges. MSTI BPDUs are sent
out, only STP BPDUs
are.
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