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Field Description
Maximum Age Read-only field; displays the maximum permissible
age, in seconds, provided by the current Root Bridge
for Spanning Tree configuration information to
remain active on the selected bridge.
When the time-span expires and the bridge has not
received any BPDUs, it discards the current Spanning
Tree information and initiates a new round of Span-
ning Tree configuration.
All the bridges in the Spanning Tree receive this value
in a BPDU from the root bridge, and they display the
value in this field.
If the age value is too small, it can cause unnecessary
Spanning Tree reconfigurations and possibly a tem-
porary loss of connectivity on the network. If the
value is too large, the network takes longer than nec-
essary to adjust to a new Spanning Tree after a bridge
goes down or a link is lost, which can cause collisions.
Hello Time Read-only field; displays the amount of time, in sec-
onds, provided by the current Root Bridge between
transmissions of configuration BPDUs.
The parameter works in parallel with the Spanning
Tree Hold Time, which should be greater than the
Hello Time. If it is smaller, the Spanning Tree Algo-
rithm responds more quickly to configuration
changes, resulting in increased network traffic.
Hold Time Read-only field; displays the amount of time, in sec-
onds, provided by the current root bridge that each
configuration BPDU is held by the bridge before being
sent out.
This timer works in parallel with the Spanning Tree
Hello Time and should be smaller than the Hello Time.
Forward Delay Read-only field; displays the delay time, in seconds,
provided by the current Root Bridge before a bridge
starts forwarding data packets.
Before a bridge changes a port from blocking to for-
warding, it passes through the listening and learning
transition states. The time the bridge spends between
the listening and learning states and between the
learning and forwarding states is the forward delay
time.
Book Page 24 Thursday, September 18, 1997 4:28 PM