Patent ID: 6785843
Filing Date: 2004-08-31
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A method for restarting a data plane of an intermediate node of a computer network without affecting state information stored on a control plane of the node, the method comprising the steps of:executing an operating system on a supervisor processor, the operating system having a platform independent code region and a platform specific code region, the platform independent code region having code features to build forwarding information base (FIB) tables for designated protocols; coupling client software to each code feature, the client software also coupling to the platform specific code region of the operating system; maintaining a current state of the control plane with the supervisor processor of the control plane; detecting a fatal error in the data plane at the supervisor processor, the data plane including hardware components; notifying the client software about the fatal error; restarting only the data plane while continuing operation of the control plane; and loading software into the hardware components of the data plane by the client software.