Cisco Certified Network Professional Practice Test 2025 - Free CCNP Exam Practice Questions and Study Guide

The state responsible for forwarding traffic in Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is the Forwarding state. In this state, a switch actively sends and receives traffic by allowing data frames to pass through its ports. This means that the switch is fully engaged in the network and can forward Ethernet frames between devices, effectively participating in network communication.

In the context of STP, there are several states that a port can go through before it reaches this point. The Disabled state means the port is not participating in STP and is effectively offline; Learning involves the switch gathering information about the network and building its MAC address table, but it does not forward frames yet. Listening allows the switch to listen to network traffic to prevent loops but also does not forward frames. Only in the Forwarding state does the switch engage fully in traffic forwarding, which is crucial for maintaining normal network operations.