Patent ID: 9680745
Date: 2017-06-13
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method for source routed forwarding in a network, the method comprising: receiving, by an edge node in a domain, a first data packet of a traffic flow over an inter-domain path, the first data packet preceding every other data packet in the traffic flow, the inter-domain path being a source-routed path traversing a route specified by a source of the first data packet, the first data packet appended with a packet header carrying a source route hop list, wherein the source route hop list specifies a path identifier of an intra-domain path segment without specifying individual hops along the intra-domain path segment, and wherein the intra-domain path segment is a portion of the inter-domain path that extends through the domain; identifying, by the edge node, a hop list associated with the path identifier, the hop list specifying a sequence of next-hop addresses along the intra-domain path segment; replacing the path identifier with the hop list in the packet header such that the next-hop addresses along the intra-domain path segment can be read directly from the packet header by intermediate nodes on the intra-domain path segment; and forwarding the first data packet to a next hop of the intra-domain path segment in accordance with the hop list.