Patent ID: 7466698
Filing Date: 2008-12-16
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A network node having a plurality of communication ports, the network node comprising: an interface configuration mechanism operable to receive user commands, the user commands comprising: a packet forwarding mechanism operable to apply the one or more packet forwarding rules, which are associated with the L3 interface class identifier, to packets arriving at the first and second L3 interfaces, the packet forwarding mechanism comprising a first hardware lookup table having a plurality of entries, some of said entries corresponding to interface class configuration commands and being identified by L3 interface class identifiers (IDs) and other of said entries corresponding to interface configuration commands and being identified by L3 interface IDs, wherein said entries in the first hardware lookup table include the respective L3 interface class IDs and L3 interface IDs and data representative of their respective packet forwarding rules; and a second hardware lookup table having a plurality of entries, each entry corresponding to an interface configuration command and operable to store an L3 interface class identifier in association with at least a VLAN ID.