Spanning tree cheat sheet version 2.0

Posted by stretch in Announcements on Monday, 25 Aug 2008 at 2:03 a.m. GMT

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.

binary-zero commented on 25 Aug 2008 at 3:10 a.m.

nice nice - this was needed !

invalidCCIE commented on 25 Aug 2008 at 5:46 a.m.

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

pseudonode commented on 25 Aug 2008 at 1:21 p.m.

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

Thank-you commented on 25 Aug 2008 at 1:41 p.m.

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

Thanks

paw commented on 25 Aug 2008 at 1:44 p.m.

@invalidCCIE

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

Tarun commented on 25 Aug 2008 at 2:32 p.m.

Nice !!

Ryan Helton commented on 25 Aug 2008 at 2:49 p.m.

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

Ron commented on 25 Aug 2008 at 4:06 p.m.

way to go stretch, this always helps

Steve commented on 25 Aug 2008 at 4:28 p.m.

Excellent as usual!

Snarkout commented on 27 Aug 2008 at 6:52 p.m.

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 commented on 27 Aug 2008 at 8:50 p.m.

Very nice writeup.

Syed Asif Raza commented on 28 Aug 2008 at 4:49 a.m.

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

Ferret999 commented on 29 Aug 2008 at 8:57 p.m.

"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.

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