Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!esquire!sullivan
From: sullivan@esquire.UUCP (David J. Sullivan)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: LanBridge 100 multicast packets
Message-ID: <341@esquire.UUCP>
Date: 24 Feb 88 18:16:35 GMT
References: <2070@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Reply-To: cmcl2!esquire!sullivan (David J. Sullivan)
Organization: DP&W, New York, NY
Lines: 21
Keywords: LB100 ethernet multicast

In article <2070@saturn.ucsc.edu> eshop@saturn.ucsc.edu (Jim Warner) writes:
>
>Our campus net includes one DEC LB100 lan bridge.  The LB100
>sends a packet a second of type 8038 to ether multicast address
>9:0:2b:1:0:1.  We don't have RBMS so we haven't a clue as to
>what this is for.  The LB100 manual is no help, of course.

I noticed these on our VitaLink TransLAN NP/IIIa's, which from what I understand
uses the same Spanning Tree Protocol to figure out what your net actually looks
like.

I called the people at VitaLink and was told that each box sends these packets
out and looks for it on the "other side" of its connection to see if there are
any loops in the network.  I forgot to ask about turning it off (if you know
there are no loops), but the overhead of a packet a second is quite neglible so 
I'm not concerned.

David Sullivan
Davis Polk & Wardwell
USENET:		...!{ cmcl2 | uunet }!esquire!sullivan
ARPANET:	sullivan@acf4.nyu.edu