Enabling Port Bridge

The port bridge function enables an interface to forward packets whose source and destination MAC addresses are both learned on the interface. By default, an interface discards packets whose source and destination MAC addresses are both learned on the interface.

When enabled with the port bridge function, the interface forwards such packets if their destination MAC addresses are found in the MAC address table.

The port bridge function is used in the following scenarios:

• The switch connects to devices that do not support Layer 2 forwarding. When users connected to the devices need to communicate, the devices send user packets to the switch for forwarding. Because source and destination MAC addresses of the packets are learned on the same interface, the port bridge function needs to be enabled on the interface so that the interface can forward such packets.
• The switch is used as an access device in a data center and is connected to servers. For example, take multiple servers hosting multiple virtual machines that need to transmit data to each other. By enabling the port bridge function on the interfaces connected to the servers, you allow the switch to forward data packets between the virtual machines at higher speed than if the servers perform the switching operations.