Spanning Tree Protocol

STP Terms:
Root Bridge: Is the bridge with the lowest and, therefore, the best bridge ID.
Root Port: Is the port with the best path to the root bridge. Each non-root bridge requires the election
of one Root Port, which represents the best path to the Root Bridge. Root Ports are always in
forwarding state.
Path Cost: The best path to the Root Bridge is measured as path cost and is determined by the
bandwidth of a link (higher bandwidth, better path cost).
Non-Root Bridges: All bridges that have not been selected as a Root Bridge. They exchange Bridge
Protocol Data Units (BPDUs) with all the other bridges, and update the STP topology data base on all
switches.
Designated Port: Is the port that has the best (lowest) cost to get to a given network segment,
compared to the other ports in that segment. It will be marked as a forwarding port, and you can have
only one forwarding port per network segment.
Forwarding Port: It forwards frames and will be either a root port or a designated port.
Portfast: Is an enhancement to Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) that allows a port to bypass the listening
and learning state and go to the forwarding mode straight away. You should use portfast for end stations
only. You would use the spanning-tree portfast command to enable this feature.
BPDU Guard: It disables a port when a BPDU is received on a port. You would use the spanning-tree
bpduguard enable command to activate this feature.
BPDU Filter: It disables STP on selected ports. You would use the spanning-tree bpdu filter command
to activate this feature.
Root Guard: Is an enhancement to STP. It protects the Layer-2 topology and the root bridge. You
would use spanning-tree rootguard command to enable this feature.