It appears that some buttons were pushed. My initial reading did suggest rstp was very good to maintain switch to switch redundancy, which is what i initially thought. Re reading your initial email I am still very curious about why you were looking to use rstp as a nic to nic design. On Fri, Oct 4, 2019, 11:48 PM Michael Butash wrote: > I really don't get any anyone in their right mind would do this other than > an experiment to say they can/did. Host ethernet chaining is not what > (Rapid) Spanning Tree Protocol was designed for, and with modern (or old) > switching, there is no reason to. As a network engineer for 20 years, it > offends certain sensibilities as something you should never do. > > There is a reason people have been using ethernet hubs/switches for 30 > years now - speed and simplicity. If you walked into any sort of > enterprise or business with any network knowledge and proposed that, > someone might just fire you. > > Switches are designed to forward quickly and effectively, some as low as > 350 down to 8 nano seconds these days with special nics, Even a server cpu > bridging at a kernel level will *never* do so as quickly as that, > particularly cumulative latency in a chain. Servers that do have more than > one nic certainly aren't intended to be daisy-chained, rather they home > each nic to multiple vlan segments, or they aggregate nics as > active/passive or active/active link aggregation to multiple switches > (redundancy). Hosts as a rule should NEVER talk spanning-tree, only switch > to switch. > > Just... don't ever chain hosts like that, particularly not if said client > is paying you for a network solution. Get a switch or multiple with as > many ports as you need. Ebay is always good for slightly older kit, and > just get a spare to keep around just in case. > > If you're *that* interested in networking to build that sort of science > experiment, pick up a CCNA switching book to learn why you're barking up > the wrong tree. > > -mb > > > On Fri, Oct 4, 2019 at 6:34 PM Stephen Partington > wrote: > >> I am still wrapping my head around why this was the root design. >> >> I am not sure what gains you have vs having a pair of switches for >> redundancy. time to research RSTP. >> >> On Fri, Oct 4, 2019 at 3:34 PM kelly stephenson >> wrote: >> >>> Looking for some networking advice from the group. >>> >>> The system I have has several devices connected in a ring configuration >>> using one Ethernet port IN and one Ethernet port out. The system uses RSTP >>> for loop free operation. The idea is simplicity for installation, you just >>> unplug and plugin a new device in the ring plus you gain redundancy, if one >>> Ethernet cable breaks you still have another one. This works but my client >>> has never had more then a half dozen devices on the network yet. >>> When I say devices just imagine very large machines. The number of >>> devices could be as many as 100 in the ring or network. Everything I've >>> researched on RSTP says over 8 devices and its not effective/efficient so >>> I'm researching other Ethernet failover/failsafe/redundant solutions. >>> So, the local network configuration needs to scale up to 100 devices, >>> have redundancy, and low latency for M2M control. Any thoughts? >>> >>> Thanks >>> Kelly >>> --------------------------------------------------- >>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >>> https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >> >> >> >> -- >> A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from >> rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. >> >> Stephen >> >> --------------------------------------------------- >> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >> https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss