Patent ID: 6768738
Filing Date: 2004-07-27
Classification: H04L,H04Q

Abstract:
A packet forwarding apparatus provided with a plurality of line interface units each connected to an input line and an output line, comprising:a routing processing unit for referring to a routing table, based on header information of each of packets received from the input lines by said line interface units, and specifying one of said output lines from which the packet should be output; an entry table for storing therein a plurality of entries each including parameter values for defining a flow condition and packet control information, a flow detection unit for retrieving, by referring to the entry table, packet transfer control information defined by one of said entries of which the flow condition is satisfied with parameter values extracted from the header information of the received packet; and a packet forwarding unit for transferring said received packet to one of said line interface units connected to the output line specified by said routing processing unit; and wherein said entry table is divided into a plurality of subtables corresponding to the values of a specific flow attribute to be associated with each of the received packets, said flow detection unit specifies one of said subtables for each of said received packets in accordance with the value of the specific flow attribute associated with the packet, and retrieves the packet control information from among entries in the specified subtable, and said packet forwarding unit controls the transfer of each of said received packets to one of said line interface units in accordance with the packet control information notified from said flow detection unit.