![]() ![]() How loops happenĭuring normal operation, switches forward traffic along a path from one destination to another hop by hop. Also, when a switch receives traffic destined for a MAC address that it does not know, it will flood traffic to the broadcast address on all ports except the one from which it was received. When a switch receives traffic targeted to a broadcast or multicast MAC address, it floods the traffic out all ports to the broadcast address except for the port the traffic was received on. This ensures that unnecessary traffic and broadcasts are minimized, which preserves network bandwidth and improves performance. Switches work by learning the MAC addresses of all connected devices and forwarding traffic received from any transmitting device to only the device it is addressed to, based on the destination MAC address. With networking, “everyone” is the broadcast MAC address, which is FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF. The real-life equivalent would be saying “hey everyone” to address a group of people as opposed to using each of their individual names. Switches and network devices also have special reserved MAC addresses used to address all devices on the network. They rarely change, and you can use them to address an individual device. MAC addresses are basically like people’s names. They are written in hexadecimal format and have values that range from 00:00:00:00:00:00 through FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF. MAC addresses are unique hardware addresses that are encoded within a network interface on a device. Switches work at Layer 2 of the OSI model, meaning they deal in forwarding traffic based on MAC addresses. Network switches are the backbone of the local area network (LAN). To understand what a switching loop is and how it happens, it’s necessary to have a basic grasp of network switching. This article will explain what causes switching loops, how to trace their source, and how to prevent them from occurring. Fortunately, there are protocols that can be implemented to prevent them. ![]() They can take down an entire network and are difficult to trace back to the source of the problem. They are a thorn in the side of any network administrator. ![]() Switching loops occur when network switches are connected together in such a way that network traffic loops around infinitely instead of traversing the hops needed to travel from source to destination. ![]()
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