Spanning Tree Protocol

[Gar]

I just read on this forum that STP under LAN should be disabled. After looking it up, that seems correct...to me. When would it be enabled? Having only 1 or 2 devices plugged into the router and typically 2 wifi what is a good choice? 1 wifi is video. Thanks

Edit: not seeing or measuring a difference either way (on 100/10)

 

[ColinTaylor]

I've always run with STP on (probably just out of habit). Personally I don't see any reason to turn it off. It's not going to make your LAN go any faster or slower, and it might help you in the unlikely scenario that you start connecting other routers to your LAN.

OTOH if you're creating a complicated network like that, or you start looping network devices together and you don't understand what you're doing, you probably deserve everything you get.

 

[coxhaus]

In the old days on large networks you wanted STP turned off on client PCs. It could cause the PCs to time out on DHCP requests. You definitely wanted it on when connecting network devices as it protects your network from going down due to a network storm. I always run STP now on my small home network and there are no problems with PCs. So I don't turn it off on individual ports. Twenty years ago we had problems with 600 people networked local so we turned off individual ports for PCs.

Oh. This was using Cisco pro gear with IOS.

Now that I think about it, it is probably longer ago than 20 years maybe closer to 30.