Patent ID: 8213320

Claim:
A method of port configuration comprising: at a first switching device, receiving a stack link negotiation packet on a first physical port that is enabled with a stacking function, the stack link negotiation packet being received from a second switching device that is communicatively coupled with the first switching device by way of the first physical port on the first switching device; determining whether a neighbor ID carried in the stack link negotiation packet is contained in a neighbor information table that is stored at the first switching device; if the neighbor ID is contained in the neighbor information table, determining from the neighbor information table a particular logical stack port associated with the neighbor ID, and adding the first physical port to the particular logical stack port in a stack port information table; and if the neighbor ID is not contained in the neighbor information table, creating the particular logical stack port, creating a logical binding between the neighbor ID and the particular logical stack port and thereafter adding the first physical port to the particular logical stack port in the stack port information table.