The port's current state as defined by application of the Spanning Tree Protocol. This state controls what action a port takes on reception of a frame. If the bridge has detected a port that is malfunctioning it will place that port into the broken(6) state. For ports which are disabled (see ibmSEPortEnable), this object will have a value of disabled(1). forwarding(1) - port is in forwarding state learning(2) - port is in learning state listening(3) - port is in listening state blocked(4) - this port is blocked by spanning tree configured(5) - this port is waiting for spanning tree netdown(6) - this ports network interface is down configuring(7) - this port is loading LEC configuration unknown(8) - this port is in some unknown state