Patent ID: 8954601
Filing Date: 2015-02-10
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: configuring, on a network router, a set of logical interfaces for communicating flows of routing protocol messages with one or more peer routing devices, wherein each of the flows represents a peering session for exchanging routing information with a corresponding one of the peer routing devices, wherein each of the logical interfaces is associated with a physical interface, and comprises a software construct representing a type of communication interface for communicating with one or more of the peer routing devices; maintaining a set of security associations that define corresponding authentication information and encryption information for the routing protocol messages; maintaining one or more descriptor sets that each specify a set of criteria for identifying: (1) a destination address for the routing protocol messages corresponding to one of the peer routing devices, (2) an interface index that uniquely identifies the logical interface of the network router over which the corresponding flow to the peer routing device is communicated, and (3) a routing instance within the network router associated with the routing protocol messages, wherein the descriptor sets can be applied, based on the criteria, to routing protocol messages sent from any of a plurality of different types of logical interfaces including Point-to-Point (P2P) interfaces, Broadcast LAN interfaces, Non-Broadcast Multiple Access (NBMA) interfaces, Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Virtual links, and OSPF Sham links; by the network router, applying the descriptor sets to an outbound flow of the routing protocol messages directed to one of the logical interfaces to select one of the descriptor sets having criteria that identify the outbound flow; by the network router, selecting one of the security associations based on the selected descriptor set; and applying the selected security association to secure the outbound flow of the routing protocol messages.