Programming Challenge: Spanning Tree Protocol

Problem Statement

In this challenge, you will implement a simplified version of the spanning tree protocol. For this challenge, you should assume that a switch and a bridge are the same things. The only practical difference is that bridges have few ports, whereas switches have many many ports.

Spanning Tree Protocol

We saw a gist of this protocol in the last lesson. Let’s build upon that.

Configuration Bridge Protocol Data Units

The spanning tree is created by the exchange of messages between the bridges. These messages are called Configuration Bridge Protocol Data Units, or Configuration BPDUs. We’ll refer to them as BPDUs. The format of a BPDU for this ...