Patent ID: 8031715
Filing Date: 2011-10-04
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A router comprising: a network interface card to receive a packet from a network; a routing engine that maintains routing information that describes a topology of the network; a forwarding engine, wherein the routing engine directs the forwarding engine to maintain forwarding information in accordance with the routing information, wherein the forwarding engine uses the forwarding information for forwarding packets received via the network interface card; a dynamic flow capture (DFC) service card executing a communication protocol to receive, from one or more control sources (CSs), flow capture information specifying at least one destination, filter criteria for matching one or more packet flows, and a timeout associated with the filter criteria; a packet replication module to replicate the packet received by the network interface card; a control unit to provide the replicated packet from the network interface card to the DFC service card; and a timeout array comprising a plurality of elements, wherein the timeout array represents a span of time and the elements represent sequential units of time; wherein the forwarding engine outputs the packet to a destination in accordance with the forwarding information.