Patent ID: 9525628
Filing Date: 2016-12-20
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A packet forwarding method comprising: encapsulating, by a gateway, a to-be-forwarded packet as a first packet; sending, by the gateway, the first packet to a switch, wherein the first packet comprises a destination media access control (MAC) address encapsulation instruction, wherein the destination MAC address encapsulation instruction is used to instruct the switch to encapsulate a destination MAC address of a destination host for the first packet, wherein the to-be-forwarded packet comprises a destination Internet Protocol (IP) address of the destination host, wherein the destination MAC address is a MAC address of the destination host corresponding to the destination IP address, and wherein the first packet does not comprise the destination MAC address; generating, by the switch, a second packet comprising the destination MAC address according to the destination MAC address encapsulation instruction included in the first packet; and forwarding, by the switch, the second packet to the destination host corresponding to the destination MAC address.