Spanning tree protocol - useful or not?

[nmt1900]

Is spanning tree protocol of any use on this hardware or not?

I tried it out by crude testing - using a patch cable to create different kind of loops in system. All I had in result was complete halt of useful traffic beside the flood caused by the loop. Router tried to disable one port repeatedly, but this was not the one related to the loop. Only way out was to disconnect this cable.

Did I do something wrong or didn't I wait long enough? I know, that this kind of test should at least work on managed switches, but I have no idea, how long has the duration of test should be...

Device in question is RT-N66U with 376.48 on it.

 

[TurboFreak68]

I was wondering about that too Spanning-Tree Protocol if I had any advantage of it or not, did some googling and found out that it is only usefull if you have several bridges connected in same network. My guess is that you can inactivate the function.

I have a RT-AC87U and will inactivate that function and see if it any changes in the network, only runs wifi clients as well.

 

[enr00ted]

For other user's information http://youtu.be/OvQi9ZIBUhc this is what spanning tree protocol is. Op it would be cool if you can ilustrate a bit your test and how did you conduct the test and what were the results. This way if it actually does not work, you'll be taken more seriously, and also I'm interested

 

[NGRhodes]

STP is for use between layer 2 devices such as bridges and switches (not between ports on the same device).
If the only bridge/switch on your network is your Asus device then STP will serve no purpose.
STP is useful when your network topology allows for multiple paths between bridges and switches (e.g. having paired up redundant switches connected to servers) - STP evaluates costs between these devices and sets the default route to be the lowest cost, which creates a single loop-free route.

For more info, I found the STP info from the CCNA course very useful, the following link is quite close to the official Cisco documentation: http://www.freeccnastudyguide.com/study-guides/ccna/ch6/stp-2/

Cheers, Nick