POTENTIAL LOOPING AND BLOCKING PROBLEMS

Many LANs are internetworked with many multiport bridges, where the bridges permit a looped, nontree topology. In such a configuration, it is possible for packets to loop around through the network over and over again. Depending on how the networks and bridges are set up, it also possible for packets to be blocked by a bridge and not allowed to transit to a proper destination.

The next two sections provide examples of looping and blocking problems. I have made up these examples for the purpose of showing these potential problems; in real implementations, the bridges do not permit these operations to occur (unless the bridges have been incorrectly configured).

Looping

As illustrated in Figure 4-14, bridges ...

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