Patent ID: 7564779

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving designation information for a first port of each one of a plurality of bridges in a multi-bridge ring, wherein the first port of each one of a plurality of bridges is a first direction Ring Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RRSTP) port; receiving designation information for a second port of each one of a plurality of bridges in a multi-bridge ring, wherein the second port of each one of a plurality of bridges is a second direction RRSTP port and wherein the first direction around said ring is opposite the second direction around said ring; associating a first reserved MAC address with the first direction port of each one of said bridges; and associating a second reserved MAC address with the second direction port of each one of said bridges and the following is inserted on a new line immediately afterwards, configuring associated hardware of each one of said bridges to forward information transmission units using one of said reserved MAC addresses to a CPU of a respective one of said bridges.