Technical Documentation

Bridge Priority for Election of Root Bridge and Designated Bridge

Use the bridge priority to control which bridge is elected as the root bridge and also to control which bridge is elected the root bridge when the initial root bridge fails.

The root bridge for each spanning-tree protocol instance is determined by the bridge ID. The bridge ID consists of a configurable bridge priority and the MAC address of the bridge. The bridge with the lowest bridge ID is elected as the root bridge. If the bridge priorities are equal or if the bridge priority is not configured, the bridge with the lowest MAC address is elected the root bridge.

The bridge priority can also be used to determine which bridge becomes the designated bridge for a LAN segment. If two bridges have the same path cost to the root bridge, the bridge with the lowest bridge ID becomes the designated bridge.

The bridge priority can be set only in increments of 4096.

To configure the bridge priority, include the following statement:

bridge-priority priority;

You can include this statement at the following hierarchy levels:

  • [edit protocols rstp]
  • [edit protocols mstp]
  • [edit protocols mstp msti msti-id]
  • [edit protocols vstp vlan vlan-id]
  • [edit routing-instances routing-instance-name protocols rstp]
  • [edit routing-instances routing-instance-name protocols mstp]
  • [edit routing-instances routing-instance-name protocols mstp msti msti-id]
  • [edit routing-instances routing-instance-name protocols vstp vlan vlan-id]

Published: 2010-02-02