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mvduin's avatar
mvduin
Guide
Feb 20, 2023

GS105v5 and GS116v2 forward packets sent to "nearest bridge" address in violation of IEEE 802.1D

IEEE 802.1D, the standard for Ethernet switches/bridges reserves the MAC range 01:80:C2:00:00:00 – 01:80:C2:00:00:0F for special purposes (such as flow control and spanning tree) and explicitly forbids switches to forward any packets sent to any of these 16 addresses.  The later IEEE 802.1Q allows some of these to be forwarded by certain special types of switches, but ordinary switches are still required to block all 16 addresses from being forwarded.

 

Both the GS105v5 and GS116v2 violate this requirement: I see them forwarding packets that were sent to 01:80:C2:00:00:00 (spanning tree) or 01:80:C2:00:00:0E (LLDP) to all other ports like normal broadcasts.

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