SMSC SMC6516TF - Manual (Page 31)

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A
BOUT THE
S
WITCHES
Spanning Tree Protocol
The TigerSwitch 16 family supports the IEEE 802.1d Spanning
Tree Protocol. This protocol adds a level of fault tolerance by
allowing two or more redundant connections to be created
between a pair of LAN segments. When there are multiple
physical paths between segments, the protocol can choose a
single path at any given time and disable all others. This
prevents network traffic from circulating in an endless loop.
However, if the chosen path fails for any reason, an alternate
path will be activated to maintain the connection.
The default factory setting for Spanning Tree Protocol is
“enabled.” This protocol can be configured (enabled and dis-
abled) out-of-band via the serial console interface or in-band via
SNMP or Telnet.