Patent ID: 7801061

Claim:
A method of restarting a first network device having a plurality of ports for receiving and transmitting layer 2 data, wherein the first network device belongs to a network of network devices, the method comprising: when a restart of a process that includes altering a spanning state protocol (STP) state of one or more ports of at least a restarting network portion of the first network device is imminent whereby the restarting process can no longer alter the STP state of one or more restarting ports of the first network device's ports during the restart, maintaining an STP forwarding state of each restarting port that is in such STP forwarding state so as not to change such STP forwarding state to a blocking state before or during the restart under predefined conditions; and during the restart, each of the restarting ports of the restarting network portion cooperating with its peer port of a second non-restarting network device that is a neighbor of the first network device so as to prevent layer 2 loops in the network.