enabling if_bridge STP

[Nikos Vassiliadis]

On Thursday 06 December 2007 15:37:21 Silver Salonen wrote:
> Is all the traffic pass through the root-bridge in this case, so that if
> bridge1 wants to talk to bridge2, it has to go through root-bridge and
> not straight? 

Yes, they'll have to go through the root-bridge. STP will create a
tree by shutting down ports causing loops. That's how STP works.
It's all about avoiding loops...

Not following the shortest path is not very important for a layer two
device. Creating a loop in the topology and bringing the network down
because of it, is.

> In my case there's a straight connection between bridge1 
> and bridge2 too, so that they don't have to communicate through
> root-bridge.

Yes, but that also can create a loop and according to STP must be
eliminated.

Perhaps you can use some inventive IP addressing scheme, to force
direct communication... some ifconfig option(the edge option?) to
force forwarding... a tunnel... or some other weirdness(TM) ;)

Nikos