[BBLISA] STP and Fast Link

[Daniel Feenberg]

We have a dozen Netgear "Smart" switches, most of whom allow one to turn 
on STP or Fast Link, and allow one to set a variety of parameters, such as 
priority, path cost, timeout and delay.

Would turning either one of these on prevent the establishment of loops?

Are the default parameters likely to be useful? Can the priority be left 
at the default on all the switches, or do I need to establish one as the 
root in some way?

What is the downside - there is always a downside!

Does STP mean that there would be a delay in establishing a new 
connection, or that moving a patch cable from one port to another port 
would create a longer outage?

I have heard Radia Perlman lecture on STP, but I haven't made the 
connection between what she said and the parameters I am asked to set - 
the vocabulary is different.

We have an earlier experience with turning on flow control, that resulted
in bad random network bad performance, until we learned the cause, and 
which makes us hesitant to just turn either on.

The switches come with STP disabled, and Fast Link enabled by default.

Daniel Feenberg