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

Claim 0:
1. A method, comprising:
receiving, by a network device and 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 Operations 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,
wherein the different network device is to only process the OAM option based on determining the different network device is the intended recipient based on the IP address of the different network device matching the destination IP address;

determining, by the network device, 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 determining that the at least one extension header includes the OAM option comprises one or more of:
determining that a first destination options header, that precedes a routing header, includes the OAM option and determining that an IP address of the network device matches the destination IP address, or
determining that a second destination options header, that precedes an upper-layer header, includes the OAM option and determining that the IP address of the network device matches the destination IP address, and

wherein determining that the network device is the intended recipient based on the IP address of the network device matching the destination IP address;

processing, by the network device and 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
performing, by the network device, 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.