Brocade Converged Enhanced Ethernet Administrator's Guide v6.1.2_cee (53-1001258-01, June 2009)

Converged Enhanced Ethernet Administrator’s Guide 41
53-1001258-01
RSTP overview
4
A summary of the steps required to configure STP on the Brocade 8000 CEE switch follows:
1. Specify the root switch using the bridge-priority priority command. For detailed information,
see “Specifying the bridge priority” on page 47.
2. Enable PortFast on switch ports using the spanning-tree portfast {bpdu-filter | bpdu-guard}
command. PortFast only needs to be enabled on ports that connect to workstations or PCs. Do
not enable PortFast on ports that connect to other switches. For detailed information, see
“Enabling port fast” on page 60. Note that this step is optional.
NOTE
We recommend leaving other STP variables at their default values.
The following STP features are considered optional features although you might use them in your
STP configuration:
• PortFast BPDU guard and BPDU filter—For detailed information, see “Enabling port fast” on
page 60.
• Root guard—“Enabling the guard root” on page 57.
To configure STP on your Brocade 8000 CEE switch, see “STP, RSTP, and MSTP configuration
procedures” on page 45.
RSTP overview
NOTE
RSTP is designed to be compatible and interoperate with STP. However, the advantages of the RSTP
fast reconvergence are lost when it interoperates with switches running STP.
The IEEE 802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree (RSTP) standard is an evolution of the 802.1D STP standard.
It provides rapid reconvergence following the failure of a switch, a switch port, or a LAN. It provides
rapid reconvergence of edge ports, new root ports, and ports connected through point-to-point
links.
The RSTP interface states for every Layer 2 interface running RSTP are as follows:
• Learning—The interface prepares to participate in frame forwarding.
• Forwarding—The interface forwards frames.
• Discarding—The 802.1D disabled, blocking, and listening states are merged into the RSTP
discarding state. Ports in the discarding state do not take part in the active topology and do not
learn MAC addresses.