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I just read the detailed explanation from ATS about today's network outage that was posted to the IT Exchange list, and how the triggering event was a loop somewhere. Last week here in the Kellogg Center, we had the same thing happen in miniature -- somebody (who was not me, by the way) innocently created a loop in an office, and brought down the whole building for a while. ATS had to send somebody out to diagnose it and yank the offending cable (which they did quickly). Now I thought we had Spanning Tree Protocol for this kind of thing. My understanding is that any modern network switch (maybe not the low-end models from Netgear, but anything that a large university is going to have in the network closet) is going to implement spanning tree, and will detect a loop. Instead of bringing down the network, the offending port is disabled, and maybe a light blinks somewhere. So am I completely backward here? Admittedly, I haven't set up anything bigger than a home network in a few years, but I thought this was a solved problem. How, in 2010, are we still susceptible to such a common mistake? As a colleague said to me today, I guess I know what to do when I feel like going home early. Thanks, -- Carl Raymond Software Developer University Outreach & Engagement Michigan State University Kellogg Center, Garden Level East Lansing, MI 48824-1022 [log in to unmask] (517) 353-8977 http://outreach.msu.edu/