Re: NetworkManager and STP

["Darren Albers" <dalbers gmail com>]

> The way this is supposed to work is that you configure STP for each of
> the ports you're using to communicate with other switches, and thus you
> get high availability out of it.  What actually happens is that network
> admins get lazy, and instead of planning their network, they turn STP on
> for *every* port, so they can have a randomly-connected network.  And
> then everybody has to play the STP game, not just bridging devices.

That isn't completely true, at least in the Cisco world.  Cisco has
STP on by default on every port (Which to me is a proper decision) and
it should never be disabled.  To resolve the issue Port-fast should be
enabled on Access Layer ports.

So like you pointed out in a properly architected enviroment this is
not an issue since a laptop is being connected to an access layer
switch which should have port fast enabled (or STP disabled) and the
device taps in quickly.

Originally I was thinking that this something that should be resolved
by NM, but now that I think about it I wonder if Network Manager
should concern itself with an improperly architected network?