Patent ID: 7489700
Filing Date: 2009-02-10
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. An access router comprising: a plurality of communication interfaces (I/Fs) to connect to external communication lines; a processor which executes predetermined processing on packets transmitted and received through a user terminal and utilizes corresponding relationships to support each of a plurality of virtual routers accommodated therein to perform routing actions independently from other virtual routers; and a memory which stores reference information used to execute predetermined packet processing actions on received packets; wherein the memory stores the corresponding relationships each defining among a physical interface identifier for identifying a physical interface, a logical interface identifier for identifying a logical interface, a kind of protocol of a received packet, a first virtual router identifier for identifying a first virtual router, a first packet processing action to be executed on the received packet by the first virtual router, a second virtual router identifier for identifying the second virtual router designated to exclusively execute a second packet processing action which is different from first packet processing action, and memory further stores routing information to be processed by virtual routers corresponding to the virtual router identifiers, respectively; wherein the processor refers to the corresponding relationships and identifies an identifier of the first virtual router that corresponds to a respective L2TP tunnel to process the received packets, and reads from the routing information managed by the first virtual router and forwards the received packets from an receiving logical interface to another interface associated with the second virtual router, and the processor processes a received packet according to a respective protocol and per packet processing action according to a respective individual routing table of the second virtual router, wherein each of the plurality of virtual routers functions as the first virtual router to distribute a received packet to the second virtual router which exclusively executes the second packet processing action on the received packet, and the second virtual router exclusively executes the second packet processing action on the received packet based on one of the corresponding relationships including one physical interface identifier for identifying the physical interface having received the packet, one logical interface identifier for identifying the logical interface having received the packet, one kind of protocol category of the received packet, and then performs a routing processing with reference to the routing information and outputs the packet.