Patent ID: 7649906
Filing Date: 2010-01-19
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method performed at a network node in a communications network of detecting missing fragments and idle links in a multilink protocol link bundle, comprising, after each timeout: finding, at the network node, a next link bundle to check; maintaining, at the network node, a plurality of bundle link masks to track a condition of links in the link bundle, the plurality of bundle link masks comprising a bundle link mask, a recently active mask, and a previously active mask; maintaining, at the network node, a counter to determine which of the bundle link masks is to be used when determining whether a buffer cleanup procedure should be run; determining, using the counter and at least one of the plurality of bundle link masks, which of the links belonging to the link bundle are active links; determining that a fragment has been lost when a sequence number of a fragment received from each of a plurality of active links in the link bundle is greater than a missing sequence number of fragments stored in a buffer used to buffer fragments for the link bundle; and running the buffer cleanup procedure when it is determined that a fragment has been lost.