STP Troubleshooting STP

Question 1

What is a broadcast storm in a switched network?

Accepted Answer

Continuous flooding of broadcast frames caused by a Layer 2 loop, consuming all bandwidth

Answer

A weather event affecting networking

Answer

High volume of regular traffic

Answer

A DNS flood attack

Question 2

How do you verify the current STP root bridge?

Accepted Answer

Use show spanning-tree command to display root bridge ID, priority, and port roles

Answer

Check the physical labels on switches

Answer

Look at the IP routing table

Answer

Use ping to find the root

Question 3

What are common symptoms of an STP failure?

Accepted Answer

Network slowness, high CPU on switches, MAC address table instability, broadcast storms

Answer

Slow internet browsing only

Answer

Email delays

Answer

Printer not responding

Question 4

How do you change the STP root bridge priority?

Accepted Answer

Configure a lower bridge priority value on the desired root bridge switch

Answer

Move the physical switch

Answer

Change the MAC address

Answer

Update the IP address

Question 5

What happens when a root bridge fails in STP?

Accepted Answer

A new root bridge election occurs using the bridge with the next lowest bridge ID

Answer

The network permanently stops

Answer

All ports go to blocking

Answer

Manual intervention is always required

Question 6

What is the impact of a suboptimal STP topology?

Accepted Answer

Traffic takes longer paths, increased latency, underutilized links, and potential congestion

Answer

No impact on performance

Answer

Only affects specific VLANs

Answer

Only causes cosmetic issues in monitoring