The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for acquiring protocol messages by a ring-network node, including: using dual fields to identify different protocol messages; if a node supporting G.8032v1 receives a Force Switch (FS) or Manual Switch (MS) protocol message, determining that message is a Signal Fail (SF) protocol message according to an identifier; a node supporting G.8032v2 determining that the received protocol message is an SF or MS or FS protocol message according to the identifier. The method of the present invention enables the nodes in a ring network to accurately control the state of their own ports, thereby avoiding the case that multiple blocking points appear in the ring network and improving the network performance.