Planet Technology FGSW-2620PVM User Manual

Page of 185
User’s Manual of FGSW-2620VM / FGSW-2620PVM 
78
 
Port Cost 
A value used by STP to evaluate paths – 
STP calculates path costs and selects the 
path with the minimum cost as the active 
path. 
200,000-100Mbps Fast Ethernet ports
20,000-1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet 
ports 
0 - Auto 
 
Default Spanning-Tree Configuration 
Feature 
Default Value 
Enable state   
STP disabled for all ports 
Port priority 
128 
Port cost 
Bridge Priority 
32,768 
 
 
The Hello Time cannot be longer than the Max. Age. Otherwise, a configuration error will 
occur. 
 
 
Observe the following formulas when setting the above parameters: 
Max. Age _ 2 x (Forward Delay - 1 second) 
Max. Age _ 2 x (Hello Time + 1 second)
 
 
 
4.5.3 Illustration of STP 
A simple illustration of three switches connected in a loop is depicted in the below diagram. In this example, you can 
anticipate some major network problems if the STP assistance is not applied.   
If switch A broadcasts a packet to switch B, switch B will broadcast it to switch C, and switch C will broadcast it to back to 
switch A and so on. The broadcast packet will be passed indefinitely in a loop, potentially causing a network failure. In this 
example, STP breaks the loop by blocking the connection between switch B and C. The decision to block a particular 
connection is based on the STP calculation of the most current Bridge and Port settings.   
Now, if switch A broadcasts a packet to switch C, then switch C will drop the packet at port 2 and the broadcast will end 
there. Setting-up STP using values other than the defaults, can be complex. Therefore, you are advised to keep the default 
factory settings and STP will automatically assign root bridges/ports and block loop connections. Influencing STP to choose 
a particular switch as the root bridge using the Priority setting, or influencing STP to choose a particular port to block using 
the Port Priority and Port Cost settings is, however, relatively straight forward.