In the bridge path decisive manner which uses the spanning tree protocol which is used with the network where the bridge

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve communication efficiency by enabling operation even on a network, where plural VLANs are mixed, decreasing the number of BPDU to be transmitted/received by a VLAN trunk port and reducing the load of processing.;SOLUTION: A bridge 1 has an instance 2 having a data base containing the VLAN-ID of the VLAN thereof and the MAC address of a route bridge inside that VLAN for each of plural VLAVs at least. The bridge 1 discriminates whether the received BPDU bundles the BPDU corresponding to plural VLANs in one packet or not and disperses the bundled BPDU for each VLAN. Then, the instance is updated for each VLAN on the basis of the BPDU and a spanning tree is reconfigured for each VLAN. Afterwards, it is discriminated whether or not the BPDU is to be outputted to the trunk port and when the BPDU is to be outputted to the trunk port, the BPDU is bundled in one packet for prescribed time and outputted later.;COPYRIGHT: (C)2001,JPO