© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Proposing Improvements to a LAN Infrastructure

Plan for High Availability at the Data

Link Layer

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. 2

Objectives

• Identify link redundancy issues.

• Describe the methods of establishing link
redundancy.
• Understand and configure Spanning Tree.
• Understand and configure Rapid Spanning Tree.
• Understand and configure Multiple Spanning Tree.
• Plan for high availability at the Data Link layer.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-3
 Link Redundancy

• Redundant
connections from
access layer to
distribution layer
• Redundant
connections from
distribution layer to
core layer

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Link Redundancy

Issue of L2 Redundancy

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Spanning Tree

• Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

– Spanning Tree basics
– Per-VLAN (PVST)
– STP convergence
– Tuning STP
• Rapid Spanning Tree (RST)
• Multiple Instance Spanning Tree
• Layer 3 to the edge

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-6
Spanning Tree

Spanning Tree Basics

A switch is
elected as the root.
Root selection is
based on the lowest
configured priority of
any switch 0-65535.

A ‘tree-like’
loop-free topology
is established from
the perspective of
the root bridge.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-7
Spanning Tree

The BPDU is responsible for

• Electing a root bridge
• Determining the location of
loops
• Blocking to prevent loops
• Notifying the network of
changes
• Monitoring the state of the
spanning tree

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-8
Spanning Tree

• Blocking
• Listening
• Learning
• Forwarding
• Disabled (off)

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Spanning Tree

VLAN STP Timer Operation Using

Default Values
Blocking
Max-age
Listening
Forward Delay
Learning
Forward Delay
Forwarding

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Spanning Tree

• Common Spanning Tree

– IEEE 802.1D
• Per-VLAN Spanning Tree
– ISL

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Spanning Tree
Per VLAN Spanning Tree

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Spanning Tree

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Spanning Tree

• PortFast
• UplinkFast
• BackboneFast

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Spanning Tree
PortFast

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-15
 Spanning Tree
Benefits of PortFast
Console> (enable) set spantree portfast 4/1 enable Warning: Spantree port fast start should only be enabled on
ports connected
to a single host. Connecting hubs, concentrators, switches, bridges, etc. to a fast start port can cause temporary
spanning tree loops. Use with caution.
Spantree port 4/1 fast start enabled.
Console> (enable) show spantree 4/1
Port Vlan Port-State Cost Priority Fast-Start Group-method
--------- ---- ------------- ----- -------- ---------- ------------
4/1 1 blocking 19 20 enabled
4/1 100 forwarding 10 20 enabled
4/1 521 blocking 19 20 enabled
4/1 522 blocking 19 20 enabled
4/1 523 blocking 19 20 enabled
4/1 524 blocking 19 20 enabled
4/1 1003 not-connected 19 20 enabled
4/1 1005 not-connected 19 4 enabled
Console> (enable)

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-16
Spanning Tree
Uplink Fast

Console> (enable) set spantree uplinkfast enable

VLANs 1-1005 bridge priority set to 49152.
The port cost and portvlancost of all ports set to above 3000. Station update rate set to 15
packets/100ms.
uplinkfast all-protocols field set to off.
uplinkfast enabled for bridge.
Console> (enable) show spantree uplinkfast
Station update rate set to 15 packets/100ms.
uplinkfast all-protocols field set to off.
VLAN port list -----------------------------------------------
1 1/1(fwd),1/2
100 1/2(fwd)
521 1/1(fwd),1/2
522 1/1(fwd),1/2
523 1/1(fwd),1/2
524 1/1(fwd),1/2
© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.Console> (enable) AEVAP Single Site—3b-17
Spanning Tree
UplinkFast – CAM Table Issues

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-18
 Spanning Tree
BackboneFast

Console> (enable) set spantree backbonefast enable

Backbonefast enabled for all VLANs
Console> (enable) show spantree backbonefast
Backbonefast is enabled.
Console> (enable)

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-19
Spanning Tree

What can be modified to have faster convergence time?

• Max-age timer
• Forward-delay timer

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Spanning Tree
STP Timer Tuning

Max_age = (4 x hello) + (2 x dia) - 2

Forward_delay = ((4 x hello) + (3 x dia) ) / 2

Diameter of the STP domain (dia)

Diameter Range (worst case):

C-A-D-B-E  5

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-21
Spanning Tree

Configuration step:

Console> (enable) set spantree root vlan dia diameter hello hello_time

Console> (enable) set spant root 8 dia 4 hello 1

VLAN 8 bridge priority set to 8192.
VLAN 8 bridge max aging time set to 10.
VLAN 8 bridge hello time set to 1.
VLAN 8 bridge forward delay set to 8.
Switch is now the root switch for active VLAN 8.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-22
Rapid Spanning Tree

• 802.1s – Multiple Spanning Tree spec (equivalent

to MISTP).
• Enhances STP scalability
• 802.1w – Rapid Spanning Tree (equivalent to
UplinkFast and BackboneFast extensions).
• Enhances STP convergence speed

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-23
Rapid Spanning Tree

New port roles and states

Modified BPDU
Proposal and agreement messages between
bridges
BPDU handling
New topology change mechanism
PVST+ and 802.1D compatibility

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-24
Rapid Spanning Tree

Port States

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Rapid Spanning Tree
RSTP Roles

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 Rapid Spanning Tree

Modified BPDU

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Rapid Spanning Tree

BPDUs now act as keepalives:

• All bridges send BPDUs every hello time
(PVST+ used to relay BPDUs from the root).
• Port information is invalidated in 3 x hello
time max  3 BPDUs lost.
• No more max-age or message-age fields—a
hop count is used instead inside a region.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-28
Rapid Spanning Tree

Explicit handshake mechanism between

bridges
Upon link-up event, bridge sends proposal to
become designated for that segment
Response is an agreement if remote bridge
selects the port on which it received the
proposal as its root port
As soon as agreement is received, port moves
to forwarding

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-29
 Rapid Spanning Tree
Agreement/Proposal

A has a better priority than B.

A sends a proposal to B to become designated.
B compares the received priority and replies with an agreement.
B’s port becomes the root port.

• The same process is repeated when a new bridge is

inserted.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-30
 Rapid Spanning Tree
Integrated UplinkFast

New root port, quickly

moved to forwarding

• Upon detecting a direct root link failure, C is capable of

immediately switching to a new root port.
• No dummy multicasts are sent to update B’s CAM table—
C generates a TCN, which flushes B’s CAM table (for that
instance).

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-31
 Rapid Spanning Tree
Integrated BackboneFast

Inferior BPDU
“I am the root.”

• B loses its root port and sends a BPDU to C claiming that it is the
root.
• C is immediately designated as blocking and sends a proposal to B to
move to forwarding ASAP.
• B replies with an agreement and C moves its port to forwarding.
© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-32
Rapid Spanning Tree

For a rapid transition to occur, make sure

you properly identify:
–Edge ports (enabled via PortFast)
–Point-to-point links (derived from
duplex mode by default)

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-33
Rapid Spanning Tree
802.1D Topology Change

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-34
Rapid Spanning Tree
Switch(config)#
spanning-tree mode {pvst | mst | rapid-pvst}

Configure a spanning-tree mode. All stack members run the same version of Spanning
Tree.
•Select pvst to enable PVST+ (the default setting).
•Select mst to enable MSTP (and RSTP).
•Select rapid-pvst to enable rapid PVST+.

Switch(config)#
spanning-tree link-type point-to-point

If the local port becomes a designated port, the switch negotiates with the remote port
and rapidly transitions the local port to the forwarding state.
Switch#
clear spanning-tree detected-protocols

If any port on the switch is connected to a port on a legacy 802.1D switch, restart the
protocol migration process on the entire switch.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-35
 Rapid Spanning Tree
Protocol Migration

With a mix of 802.1D and

802.1w bridges,
1D bridges drop 1w BPDUs 
1D bridges always end up
sending BPDUs.

The switch cannot detect if the

802.1D bridge is removed if it
is not designated (otherwise it
would send BPDUs).

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-36
Multiple Spanning Tree
Why MST?

PVST+ = 1 STP per VLAN

Flexible load balancing
CPU needs to handle up to 4K instances for
only two different logical topologies

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-37
Multiple Spanning Tree
Contrast with 802.1Q

All VLANS on one spanning-tree instance

Light on resources: One instance
One single logical topology for all VLANs, poor
flexibility
© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-38
 Multiple Spanning Tree
The MST Paradigm

Flexible load balancing

CPU only needs to handle two spanning
tree-instances (for two topologies)
New, complex, interoperability with legacy
protocols
© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-39
Multiple Spanning Tree

An MST region is a group of switches that

have the same configuration.
MST decouples VLANs and STP
instances.
Bridges inside a region must have
consistent VLAN-to-instance mapping.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-40
Multiple Spanning Tree

MST configuration comprises:

A name (32 bytes)
User
A revision number (16 bits)
Assigned
VLAN-to-instance table
must be the same on all switches
 Manual configuration, SNMP…
(not specified by the standard)

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-41
 Multiple Spanning Tree
MST Region Boundary

A digest of the configuration is sent in the MST

BPDUs—if they differ, they are in different
regions!

B2 designated => B1 boundary, B2 and B3 internal

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-42
Multiple Spanning Tree

The MST bridge must handle at least two

instances:
• One Internal Spanning Tree (IST)
• At least one Multiple Spanning Tree Instance
(MSTI)

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-43
 Multiple Spanning Tree

The IST Instance

In a standard 802.1Q network, there
is only one STP instance, called the

Common Spanning Tree (CST).

The IST instance is an RSTP instance
that extends the CST inside the
MST region.
The MST region views the outside
world via its IST/CST interaction
only.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-44
 Multiple Spanning Tree
MST Region: a Virtual Bridge

The entire MST

region appears as a
virtual CST bridge to
the outside world.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-45
 Multiple Spanning Tree
MST region: a Virtual Bridge
CST

In the BPDU sent by B, root path

cost and message age are
incremented as if they had
only crossed one bridge.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-46
 Multiple Spanning Tree

MSTIs (2)

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Multiple Spanning Tree

MSTIs (3)

BPDUs can be sent both ways on a link.

A record for every instance is included in the BPDUs.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-48
 Multiple Spanning Tree
MSTIs (4)
The IST instance exists on all ports,
regardless of VLAN mapping.
No connectivity between PC A and PC B. Why?

• Avoiding VLAN mapping to the IST can

be a solution.
© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-49
 Multiple Spanning Tree
MSTIs (5)

The same issue can occur with VLANs

belonging to the same instance but not
allowed on the same ports.

• Do not prune VLANs in this case.

• Or, keep VLANs in the same instance
consistently enabled or disabled all
together on a trunk.
© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-50
 Multiple Spanning Tree
MSTIs (6)
MSTIs do not send BPDUs at boundary ports.
 All MSTIs end up designated.
Only the IST interacts with the CST.
Loop in instance 2? MST

Only the IST interacts with the CST.

On A and B, instance 2 forwarding
(does not receive BPDU).

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-51
Multiple Spanning Tree

A boundary port of any MSTI always follows the state

of the IST.
Result: on B, the port for instance 2 blocks too,
because the IST blocks  the loop is avoided.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-52
 Multiple Spanning Tree

Interaction with PVST(+) Bridges (1)

IST Root is Root

for all VLANS

IST BPDUs generated for all

VLANS

Recommended configuration: the IST is root for all

PVST(+) instances

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-53
 Multiple Spanning Tree
Interaction with PVST(+) Bridges (2)

Root for all VLANS

but the VLAN 2

Must be either
blocking or
forwarding for all
Block for all VLANS
but VLAN 2

Mis-configuration: boundary ports are blocked

“root inconsistent” – syslog msg
© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-54
 Multiple Spanning Tree

Interaction with PSVT (+) Bridges (3)

If the CST root is outside of the MST region, no

problem
© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-55
Multiple Spanning Tree

IST/CST interaction

• The IST is always present on all

ports.
• VLAN 1 is mapped to MSTI 5,
VLAN 2 to IST—VLAN 2 pruned
off trunks in core.
• Result: P blocks two ports,
even though VLAN 2 is loop free!

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-56
Multiple Spanning Tree
Switch(config)#
spanning-tree mst configuration
Enter MST configuration mode.
Switch(config-mst)#
instance instance-id vlan vlan-range

For instance-id, the range is 1 to 15. For vlan vlan-range, the range is 1 to 4094.
Switch(config-mst)#
name name

Specify the configuration name.

Switch(config-mst)#
revision revision

Specify the revision.

Switch(config)#
spanning-tree mode mst

Enable MSTP. RSTP is also enabled.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-57
Multiple Spanning Tree

Switch(config)# spanning-tree mst configuration
Switch(config-mst)# instance 1 vlan 10-20
Switch(config-mst)# name region1
Switch(config-mst)# revision 1
Switch(config-mst)# show pending
Pending MST configuration
Name [region1]
Revision 1
Instance Vlans Mapped
-------- ----------------------------
0 1-9,21-4094
1 10-20
------------------------------------------
Switch(config-mst)# exit

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-58
Plan for High Availability at the Data
Link Layer

Follow these guidelines for establishing

redundant links:
• Configure Spanning Tree to avoid loops on
redundant networks.
• Tune STP / configure PortFast, UplinkFast,
BackboneFast.
• Configure Rapid Spanning Tree for faster
convergence times.
• Configure Multiple Spanning Tree to allow efficient
load balancing.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-59
Plan for High Availability at the Data
Link Layer (Cont.)

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-60
Summary

• PortFast, UplinkFast, and BackboneFast provide

mechanisms for faster STP convergence.
• Tune various STP timers for faster convergence. This
may affect CPU usage, however.
• RSTP has integrated PortFast, UplinkFast, and
BackboneFast.
• MST combines the best aspects of PVST+ and 802.1Q.
• From outside the MST region, it appears as one bridge.
• MSTIs are RSTP instances that exist only inside the
region.
• MST BPDUs can be sent in both directions across a link.

© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-61
© 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. AEVAP Single Site—3b-62