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The Place of PortFast and BPDU Guard

BPDU guard

Every 2 seconds we send a BPDU on very port. BPDU guard does the following “whenever you recieve a BPDU on this port, disable it (put it in an error disabled state)”

Turn on BPDU guard on every interface where no switch is connected! So for the future, whenever there gets a switch connected you have the port getting error disabled.

Why disable and enable when we have the “no spanning-tree…”

We enable BPDU Guard on Edge Ports to protect our network from loops and unauthorized switches. You can enable BPDU guard by default on every portfast ports.

We disable BPDU Guard on uplink/trunk ports (ports connected to other legitimate, authorized switches).

How to get out of error-disabled state?

  1. Global config mode
  2. Interface
  3. Shutdown
  4. No shutdown

PortFast

You want to turn on PortFast on any interface which does NOT connect to another switch.

Spanning-tree portfast -> turns off spanning-tree

Spanning-tree portfast default -> enable portfast by default an all ACCESS ports

Cisco IOS commands learned in this chapter

CommandDescription
interface GigabitEthernet0/1    
spanning-treePortfast  Enables PortFast on the specific interface
Spanning-treeBpduguardDisable Disables BPDU Guard on that specific interface
Shutdown   Shutsdown the interface
No shutdown   Brings the interface up
Spanning-treePortfastDefault Enables PortFast globally on all access ports
Spanning-treePortfastBpduguardDefaultenable BPDU guard by default on every portfast ports

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