Patent ID: 7742408
Filing Date: 2010-06-22
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for filtering packets in a switching environment, comprising: receiving a packet at an input port of a switch, the switch comprising a memory and one or more output ports; storing at least a portion of the packet in the memory; determining one or more output ports from which the packet is to be communicated from the switch; after beginning to determine one or more output ports from which the packet is to be communicated from the switch, determining whether the packet is an illegal packet; if the packet is an illegal packet, dropping the packet from the memory; and if the packet is a legal packet, communicating the packet from the determined one or more output ports; wherein the switch comprises a drop queue and wherein the memory is logically divided into a plurality of blocks, the method further comprising allocating at least a first block and a second block of memory to the input port to store the packet, and wherein dropping the packet from the memory comprises: