Method and system for shortcut trunking of lan bridges

Abstract

The invention provides a method and system for routing traffic between LAN bridges. A method and system for enabling a blocked link to allow forwarding of traffic across the blocked link includes determining whether the blocked link is a point-to-point connection between two bridges, each one of the two bridges having a plurality of ports, ascertaining whether each one of the two bridges operates a Shortcut Trunking Exchange protocol, and calculating whether on at least one of the two bridges, a port cost of the blocked link is equal to or lower than a port cost of each other one of the plurality of ports. In addition, a method for selecting traffic to forward on a blocked link, the traffic having a source and a destination address, includes building an outside address list for a first bridge, the outside address list including each address “outside” the first bridge, building an outside address list for a second bridge, the outside address list including each address “outside” the second bridge, determining that the source and destination addresses are both “outside” the first and second bridges using the outside address lists for the first and second bridges, and forwarding the traffic if the traffic is unicast traffic when the source and destination addresses are both “outside” the first and second bridges.