Patent ID: 6512768
Filing Date: 2003-01-28
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A tag-switching router comprising:A. one or more interfaces enabled for tag-switching, each interface having an assigned tag space comprised of incoming tags to be appended to input data packets by a tag-switching peer, said tagged input data packets to be forwarded to the interface by the peer, B. circuitry at each interface for periodically multicasting an output Hello message in a tag distribution protocol (TDP) protocol data unit (PDU), said output Hello message TDP PDU including a router TDP identifier identifying the tag space assigned to the interface by the router, C. circuitry at each interface for responding to an input Hello message in a TDP PDU multicast by the peer, said input Hello message TDP PDU including a peer TDP identifier identifying a tag space assigned to the interface by the peer, wherein the router records the peer TDP identifier in a record associated with the interface to create a link adjacency, D. circuitry for transmitting to the peer an output Bind message in a TDP PDU, said output Bind message TDP PDU including the router TDP identifier, said output Bind message containing advertised tag bindings corresponding to the tag space identified by the router TDP identifier, said advertised tag bindings containing the incoming tags, E. circuitry for receiving an input Bind message in a TDP PDU transmitted by the peer, said input Bind message TDP PDU including the peer TDP identifier, said input Bind message containing learned tag bindings corresponding to the tag space identified by the peer TDP identifier, said learned tag bindings containing the outgoing tags, and F. circuitry for appending the outgoing tags to received data packets having destination addresses bound to the learned tag bindings and forwarding the tagged received data packets to the peer from an interface assigned the peer TDP identifier.