Spanning tree cheat sheet version 2.0

By stretch | Monday, August 25, 2008 at 2:03 a.m. UTC

The old spanning tree cheat sheet had numerous problems (as dutifully pointed out by a number of readers), so I decided to rework it from scratch. Today I've uploaded the new STP cheat sheet, version 2.0.

The new sheet is two pages, expanded to include full IOS configuration examples of both PVST+ and MST. Through some amount of pain, I've also managed to draw up a specifications flow chart, illustrating the development of the various spanning tree protocols over the past decade or so. I felt this was important, as many people still refer to RSTP as 802.1w and MST as 802.1s, when in fact those supplements have been merged into the finalized 802.1D and 802.1Q standards, respectfully. It's also interesting to see how Cisco has developed their proprietary per-VLAN implementations in parallel to the open standards.

As always, feel free to download and distribute freely, and please let me know if you uncover any errors.

About the Author

Jeremy Stretch is a freelance networking engineer, instructor, and the maintainer of PacketLife.net. He currently lives in Fairfax, Virginia, on the edge of the Washington, DC metro area. Although primarily an R&S guy, he likes to get into everything, and runs a free network training lab out of his basement for fun. You can contact him by email or follow him on Twitter.

Posted in Announcements

Comments

binary-zero (guest) commented on Monday, August 25, 2008 at 3:10 a.m. UTC

nice nice - this was needed !

invalidCCIE (guest) commented on Monday, August 25, 2008 at 5:46 a.m. UTC

note: rapid pvst+ is usualy called "pvrst+" than "rpvst+"

pseudonode (guest) commented on Monday, August 25, 2008 at 1:21 p.m. UTC

The specifications flow chart is awesome. That clears up a very confusing topic

Thank-you (guest) commented on Monday, August 25, 2008 at 1:41 p.m. UTC

Awesome work man, I appreciate it. I always get confused with the whole STP process.. this will definitely help out with studying!

Thanks

paw (guest) commented on Monday, August 25, 2008 at 1:44 p.m. UTC

@invalidCCIE

RPVST+ (also known as PVRST+)...

Tarun (guest) commented on Monday, August 25, 2008 at 2:32 p.m. UTC

Nice !!

Ryan Helton (guest) commented on Monday, August 25, 2008 at 2:49 p.m. UTC

This is great man! My favorite one yet and just in time for my ICND2 cramming. Thanks!

Ron (guest) commented on Monday, August 25, 2008 at 4:06 p.m. UTC

way to go stretch, this always helps

Steve (guest) commented on Monday, August 25, 2008 at 4:28 p.m. UTC

Excellent as usual!

Snarkout (guest) commented on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 6:52 p.m. UTC

Thanks for the work! These are absolutely fantastic, as usual!

Per Google: 616 for rpvst. 2,850 for pvrst.

There wasn't enough aggregate info to get trends :-(

Kevin (guest) commented on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 8:50 p.m. UTC

Very nice writeup.

Syed Asif Raza (guest) commented on Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 4:49 a.m. UTC

Mavellous bro!! Excellent work once again....

Ferret999 (guest) commented on Friday, August 29, 2008 at 8:57 p.m. UTC

"many people still refer to RSTP as 802.1w and MST as 802.1s, when in fact those supplements have been merged into the finalized 802.1D and 802.1Q standards, respectfully." Thanks for this but the reason everyone thinks this is that the Ciscopress books give out the wrong information which is very annoying.

Leave a Comment


Register to comment as a member. You'll look cooler.

Optional; will not be displayed publicly or given out.

No commercial links. Only personal (e.g. blog, Twitter, or LinkedIn) and/or on-topic links, please.
What does the I in IPv4 stand for?