Cabletron Systems 9E428-12, 9E429-36, 9E428-36, 9E429-12 appendix Switch Configuration Screen Fields

9E428-12/36 and 9E429-12/36 Module Specific Information

Switch Configuration Screen Fields

The following information briefly explains each Switch Configuration Screen field.

Type of STA (Toggle)

Allows you to set the method that switches use to decide which switch is the controlling (Root) switch when two or more switches exist in parallel (Spanning Tree Algorithm). Press the Space Bar to toggle to the desired value. Valid types are:

•DEC

•IEEE

•NONE

NOTE

All switches in a network must use the same Spanning Tree protocol. The IEEE protocol has a unique format for its Bridge Protocol Data Units (BPDU). Trying to mix STA protocols results in an unstable network.

Port #

Displays the number of the port for which configuration information is displayed.

MAC Address

Lists the hardware address of each listed switch interface.

State

Displays the current state of each listed interface. The possible interface states include:

Disabling: Management has disabled this interface. No traffic can be received or forwarded while the interface is disabled.

Learning: The switch is learning this interface’s network addresses. The switch enters the learning state when the Transparent Database is created (during start-up or after being deleted), or when the Spanning Tree Algorithm detects a network topology change.

Listening: The switch is not adding information to the Transparent Database. The switch is monitoring BPDU traffic while preparing to move from the learning to the forwarding state.

Forwarding: The switch is on-line and this interface is forwarding traffic.

Blocking: This interface will not forward any traffic through the switch.

8