STP Questions & Answers

Ques 1. What is BID made up of in STP?

BID is abbreviation for Bridge ID. Every switch has an identity as part of a network and this
identity is called the Bridge ID. It is an 8 byte field which is divided into two parts (Bridge
priority and MAC Address).

BID = Bridge Priority + MAC address

Ques 2. What is value of system ID in BID (Bridge ID)?

The Extended System ID is a value of 1 to 4095 corresponding to the respective VLAN

number participating in STP.

Ques 3. What are Spanning Tree Protocol default timers?

Spanning Tree Default timers are –

 Hello Timer: 2 sec

 Forward Delay: 30 sec

 Max Age Timer: 20 sec.

Ques 4. What single command will make Switch1 root for Vlan 10?

Switch1(config)#spanning-tree vlan 10 root primary

Ques 5. RSTP provides a faster transition to the forwarding state on point-to-point links than STP
does – Validate the statement?

Yes, above understanding is correct.RSTP provides faster convergence as compared to

conventional STP due to below key features of RSTP –

 RSTP has a default convergence time of 6 seconds.

 RSTP converges after three BPDU are missed consecutively

 BPDU in RSTP are sent by every switch at an interval of 2 seconds.

 RSTP only has 3 states of Discarding, Learning and Forwarding as opposed to 5 states
of STP.
Ques 6. Which command enables RSTP on a switch? Which are two port states when RSTP has
converged?

Following command enables RSTP on Switch – “Spanning-tree mode rapid-pvst”

2 states of converged RSTP are – “Edge Ports and Non-Edge Ports”

Ques 7. What is BPDU? What are 2 types of BPDUs?

BPDU stands for Bridge Protocol Data Unit.BPDUs are data messages that are exchanged
across the switches within a LAN that uses a spanning tree protocol topology. BPDU packets
contain information on ports, addresses, priorities and costs Bridge Protocol and are sent
out as multicast destination MAC address 01:80:c2:00:00:00. BPDUs help Switches
identifying loops in LAN network and taking corrective actions like port blocking the ports
etc.

2 types of Bridge Protocol Data Units (BPDUs) are –

 Configuration BPDU (CBPDU)

 Topology Change Notification (TCN) BPDU

Ques 8. At which layer of the OSI model is RSTP used to prevent loops?

Layer 2 (Data Link Layer)

Ques 9. Is RSTP compatible with the original IEEE 802.1D STP?

RSTP is able to interoperate with legacy STP protocols. However, it is important to note that
the fast convergence benefits of 802.1w are lost when it interacts with bridges running STP.

Ques 10. Which protocol is used by bridges and/or switches to prevent loops in a layer 2
network?

STP – Spanning Tree Protocol.

Ques 11. Which switch would STP choose to become the root bridge in the selection process
out of these 2 – (A) 32768: 11-22-33-44-55-66 (B) 32768: 22-33-44-55-66-77?

Switch A is chosen (32768: 11-22-33-44-55-66) due to lower MAC address as root priority of
32768 is a tie.

Ques 12. What are different port states of STP? Arrange STP port states in chronological
order?

Below is the chronological order of STP port states -

 Disabled

 Blocked

 Listening

 Learning

 Forwarding

Ques 13. Which specifications will allow you to associate VLAN groups to STP instances so you
can provide multiple forwarding paths for data traffic and enable load balancing?

MST (IEEE 802.1s) extends RSTP algorithm to Multiple Spanning trees. MST has the capability
to associate VLAN groups to STP instances hence providing load balancing due to multiple
forwarding paths and at same time provide rapid convergence.

Ques 14. Explain different type of STP port roles?

 Root ports - exist on non-root bridges and are switch ports with best cost path to
root bridge.

 Designated ports - exist on root and non-root bridges. For Root Bridge all ports are
designated ports. Only one designated port is allowed on a segment.

 Non-designated ports - Switchport that is blocked.

  Disabled port - is administratively down (has no function and does not participate in
STP).

Ques 15. What is destination mac address used for BPDUs?

01:80:C2:00:00:00

Ques 16. What is the major advantage of MSTP?

In MSTP we can limit the number of STP instances required by binding a set of VLANs to
single STP instance and other set of VLANs to other STP instance. This allows administrator
to have load balanced setup due to multiple forwarding paths.

Ques 17. How is Root Bridge selected?

Root Bridge is elected based on below criteria:

 Lowest Root Bridge ID

 Lowest Root path cost

 Lower sender bridge ID

 Lower sender port ID.

Ques 18. What is Root Port?

Root port is a port having lowest root path cost to the root bridge.

Ques 19. What is extended system ID?

The Extended System ID is a value of 1 to 4095 corresponding to the respective VLAN

participating in STP.

Ques 20. Which type of ports are configured under portfast?

Access ports are usually configured as port fast where an end station connects and there is
no possibility of loop on these ports.
Ques 21. What is one benefit of PVST+ compared to PVST?

Both are, as you know Cisco proprietary. PVST runs instance per VLAN, so does PVST+. What
Plus version does however, is it sends 802.1D compatible BPDUs, as well as Cisco
proprietary, making it compatible with non-Cisco STP implementations.

Ques 22. STP uses which criteria to decide whether to place a port in a Forwarding state or
Blocking state?

STP uses the following criteria to decide whether to place a port in a Forwarding state or
Blocking state –

 STP elects a Root Bridge, and then puts all its working interfaces in a Forwarding
state

 All other switches are now non–root switches. STP next looks at all the Root Ports
from switches and finds the one with the Least Cost. STP places that interface in
forwarding state.

 STP finds all the designated ports on the non–root switches and places them in a
Forwarding state.

 Then STP places all other ports in a Blocking state.

Ques 23. STP uses which steps to select its paths?

Following four criteria’s are used for selecting path in STP:

 Lowest Root Bridge ID

  Lowest Root path cost

 Lower sender bridge ID

 Lower sender port ID.

Ques 24. What is portfast in STP?

Portfast is enabled mainly on access ports where an end station connects. If a port is
enabled with port-fast it is directly put into the forwarding state without going through
Listen and Learn states thus making the convergence faster.

Ques 25. What is port priority in STP?

Each port of a Switch has a Spanning Tree Port Priority value associated with it, which is
equal to 128 by default.

Ques 26. Which command will let you know about the cost of ports configured?

Show spanning-tree vlan <vlan number>

Ques 27. Which port state is introduced by Rapid-PVST?

Port states in RSTP are -

 Discarding

 Learning

 Forwarding

From above 3, “Discarding” state is introduced with RSTP and has replaced Disabled,
Blocking and listening states of STP.

Ques 28. What conditions cause an STP topology change? What effect does this have on STP
and the network?

Any forwarding port gone down due to any reason might trigger a STP topology change and
can cause the STP topology to re-converge using the BPDU exchange process and this may
lead to Blocked ports to be put into the forwarding state to reach the root bridge again.
Ques 29. A Root Bridge has been elected in a switched network. Suppose that a new switch is
installed with a lower Bridge ID than the existing Root Bridge. What will happen?

The new switch installed with send BPDU with its lower root bridge ID and it will cause all
the STP topology to re-converge and this new switch will be elected as the root bridge now.

Ques 30. Suppose that a switch receives Configuration BPDUs on two of its ports. Both ports
are assigned to the same VLAN. Each of the BPDUs announces Catalyst A as the Root Bridge. Can
the switch use both of these ports as Root Ports? Why?

No, both ports won’t be used as root ports. A switch can have only a single root port and
that will be elected based port having lower root port path cost. Once a root port is elected
the other port will be put into the blocking state provided both ports are present on the
same LAN segment.

Ques 31. What conditions can cause ports on a network's Root Bridge to move into the
Blocking state?

By definition, all ports on the Root Bridge are Designated Ports because they are in the
closest possible location to the Root Bridge. Therefore, those ports never can be put into the
Blocking state.

Exceptions to this can be –

 If two of the Root Bridge switch's ports are connected, a situation that could cause
one port to go into blocking state.

 Another scenario may be when a new Switch announces itself as Root Bridge and
the original root bridge has multiple uplink connecting to new Root Bridge.

Ques 32. What parameters can be tuned to influence the selection of a port as a Root or
Designated Port?

Port priority or port cost

Ques 33. In a BPDU, when can the Root Bridge ID have the same value as the Sender Bridge
ID?

If it is a BPDU sent from a Root Bridge itself i.e. 2 ends of LAN cable are connected to 2 ports
on same Root Bridge switch.

Ques 34. Using the default STP timers, how long does it take for a port to move from the
Blocking state to the Forwarding state?

The maximum time from moving port from blocking state to forwarding state is 52 seconds

The calculation is enumerated as below –

 Hello time = 2 secs
Max Age = 20 secs
Listening = 15 secs
Learning = 15 secs

Ques 35. Over what VLANs does the CST run?

One unique Spanning Tree instance is used by all VLANs in the network. STP runs on the
Native VLAN.

Ques 36. What happens to BPDU packet when STP is disabled on port?

STP cannot be disabled on per port basis. If STP is disabled on whole switch, it will start
behaving like a hub and forward all incoming traffic to rest of ports.

Ques 37. Can STP be configured on a router?

As a general case Spanning Tree can’t be configured on a Router. However, if we have any
layer 2 provisioning like EtherSwitch module or IRB (Integrated Routing & Bridging) or Bridge
Group configured, Spanning Tree will come into play.

Ques 38. Is STP required to be configured when there is only one switch?

No, since there is no possibility of loop there.

Ques 39. Is an Ethernet frame modified when STP is configured on the network

No. STP has its own frame format when configured and therefore will not affect an Ethernet
frame on the network.

Ques 40. How many root bridges can be available on a STP configured network?

Only 1 Root Bridge can be there.

Ques 41. If the priority value of the two switches are same, which switch would be elected as
the root bridge?

The one with lower MAC address is chosen as Root Bridge if priority is a tie.

Ques 42. Which mechanism is used to detect the unidirectional links failure and addressing
bridging loops?
 UDLD is a cisco proprietary feature used to detect unidirectional link failures

Ques 43. If the Root Bridge sets the Topology Change flag in the BPDU, what must the other
switches in the network do?

All the switches will flush their MAC tables and re-learn the MAC entries.

Ques 44. How many root ports are there for each non-root bridge?

One root port per non-root switch.

Ques 45. Which STP version runs on cisco Switches?

Version 2

Ques 46. What is difference between Root port and designated port?

All port on a root bridge are designated ports and in forwarding state. Designated port is
also seen on a LAN segment between two switches which is elected based on the election
criteria used for STP.

Root port is seen on non-root switches and these are the ports on a switch with lowest root
path cost to the root bridge. There can only be 1 root port per non-root switch.
Ques 47. What is function of BPDU Filter?

BPDU filter if enabled on an interface will stop all the BPDUs from being sent/received from
that port. BPDU filter can be enabled on a port configured for port fast as no BPDU is
expected on those ports.

Ques 48. If we want to disable STP on a port connected to a server, which command would
you use?

We cannot disable STP on a per port basis.

Ques 49. Can we use BPDU filter on Trunk ports?

BPDU filter cannot be used on trunk ports.

Ques 50. One end of every link should be designated port. What 2 states can the other port
be part of?

Root port or Blocked Port.