Cisco Systems N3KC3064TFAL3 Election of the Root Bridge, Creating the Spanning Tree Topology

Configuring Rapid PVST+

Understanding STP

Election of the Root Bridge

For each VLAN, the switch with the lowest numerical value of the bridge ID is elected as the root bridge. If all switches are configured with the default priority (32768), the switch with the lowest MAC address in the VLAN becomes the root bridge. The bridge priority value occupies the most significant bits of the bridge ID.

When you change the bridge priority value, you change the probability that the switch will be elected as the root bridge. Configuring a lower value increases the probability; a higher value decreases the probability.

The STP root bridge is the logical center of each spanning tree topology in a network. All paths that are not needed to reach the root bridge from anywhere in the network are placed in STP blocking mode.

BPDUs contain information about the transmitting bridge and its ports, including bridge and MAC addresses, bridge priority, port priority, and path cost. STP uses this information to elect the root bridge for the STP instance, to elect the root port leading to the root bridge, and to determine the designated port for each segment.

Creating the Spanning Tree Topology

In the following figure, Switch A is elected as the root bridge because the bridge priority of all the switches is set to the default (32768) and Switch A has the lowest MAC address. However, due to traffic patterns, number of forwarding ports, or link types, Switch A might not be the ideal root bridge. By increasing the priority (lowering the numerical value) of the ideal switch so that it becomes the root bridge, you force an STP recalculation to form a new spanning tree topology with the ideal switch as the root.

Figure 8: Spanning Tree Topology

When the spanning tree topology is calculated based on default parameters, the path between source and destination end 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. The goal is to make the fastest link the root port.

For example, assume that one port on Switch B is a fiber-optic link, and another port on Switch B (an unshielded twisted-pair [UTP] link) is the root port. Network traffic might be more efficient over the high-speed fiber-optic link. By changing the STP port priority on the fiber-optic port to a higher priority (lower numerical value) than the root port, the fiber-optic port becomes the new root port.

Cisco Nexus 3000 NX-OS Layer 2 Switching Configuration Guide, Release 5.0(3)U3(1)

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