Design and implementation of Ethernet topology discovery algorithm

Ethernet topology discovery refers to entities discovery in the actual physical network connection (corresponding to the second OSI layer devices). That is, the relation of switches and switches, switches and routers, switches and the hosts. The purpose of Topology Discovery in multi-VLAN Ethernet is to obtain and maintain the existence of network nodes and connections between them and on this basis to map out the entire network topology. This paper proposes an Ethernet data link layer topology discovery algorithm base on MAC Address Table. The algorithm can compute the relation of switches in target network.