Patent ID: 11882016
Assignee: CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 6:
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the data plane validation process fails if the number of the multiple paths is not equal to the number of packets received by the last network node, the method further comprising, when the data plane validation process fails, locating a failure in the network by:
sending the label including a time-to-live (TTL) field in a header of the test data packet, wherein the TTL field becomes zero at one or more node-N;
sending one or more expiry or error messages, from each of the one or more node-N to the first network node;
determining that a number of the one or more expiry or error messages is not equal to a total number of multiple paths from the first network node to the one or more node-N; and
determining that the failure in forwarding packets has occurred between the one or more node-N and an immediate previous node of the one or more node-N.