Patent ID: 6515969
Filing Date: 2003-02-04
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
In an intermediate network device having a plurality of ports for forwarding messages between one or more network entities across a computer network that may be segregated into a plurality of virtual local area networks (VLANs) each having a VLAN designation, the device executing a spanning tree algorithm to transition its ports between a plurality of spanning tree states, including a forwarding state and a blocking state, for each VLAN, a method for disseminating VLAN membership information across the computer network comprising the steps of:establishing a Generic Attribute Registration Protocol (GARP) participant at each port, each GARP participant having a multiple spanning tree (MST) GARP VLAN Registration Protocol (MST-GVRP) application and associated GARP Information Declaration (GID) component; establishing a plurality of GARP Information Propagation (GIP) contexts providing communication between the MST-GVRP applications; associating each GIP context with a single VLAN designation; and for a given MST-GVRP application at a given port, participating in zero, one or more GIP contexts depending on the spanning tree state of the given port for each VLAN.