Patent ID: 11909650
Assignee: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 7:
8. A network device, comprising:
one or more memories; and
one or more processors to:
receive, from a different network device that is not an intended recipient of an internet protocol (IP) packet, the IP packet that includes an IP packet header,
wherein the IP packet header includes a destination IP address,
wherein the IP packet header is supplemented with at least one extension header,
wherein the at least one extension header includes an Operation and Management capabilities (OAM) option that indicates one or more actions to be performed by the network device,

wherein the intended recipient is a particular network device to ultimately receive the IP packet and not transmit the IP packet to another network device, and
wherein the different network device transmitted the IP packet to the network device without processing the OAM option based on the IP address of the different network device failing to match the destination IP address;

determine that the network device is the intended recipient and that the at least one extension header includes the OAM option based on parsing the at least one extension header,
wherein the one or more processors, to determine that the at least one extension header includes the OAM option, are configured to one or more of:
determine that a first destination options header, that precedes a routing header, includes the OAM option and determine that an IP address of the network device matches the destination IP address, or
determine that a second destination options header, that precedes an upper-layer header, includes the OAM option and determine that the IP address of the network device matches the destination IP address;

process, based on determining that the network device is the intended recipient and that the at least one extension header includes the OAM option, the OAM option to determine the one or more actions in a field of the OAM option; and
perform the one or more actions identified in the OAM option based on processing the OAM option to determine the one or more actions in the field of the OAM option.