A METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY DETECTING PHYSICAL CONNECTIONS OF ETHERNET BRIDGES CONNECTED TO A ROOT BRIDGE

摘要

A method of detecting physical connections between a root bridge node and layer-2 bridge nodes organised in a layer-2 cloud. The method comprises sending (204) a query message from a sending port of the root bridge node and starting (206) a timer set to a waiting interval. After the timer expired (208), if a response message to the query message is not received or is received at the sending port then only the sending port is associated (216) with said layer-2 cloud. Alternatively, if a response message is received at a port other than the sending port then the sending port and the receiving port are associated (214) with said layer-2 cloud. A bridge node and a layer-2 communications network are also disclosed.