Patent ID: 7570639

Claim:
A network device for distribution of non-unicast traffic on a trunk group by selecting an appropriate port from the trunk group on which to transmit a non-unicast packet, the network device comprising: at least one trunk group comprising a plurality of physical ports, wherein the network device is connected to at least one other network device by a number of the plurality of physical ports; a table comprising a plurality of entries, wherein each entry is associated with the number of the plurality of physical ports on the network device and each entry specifies if a packet should be transmitted on one of the plurality of physical ports; hashing means configured to hash a predefined number of bits from a source address, a destination address, and a source port trunk group identifier in the packet to obtain an index to select one entry in the table, wherein the selected entry is used to identify a destination port; and transmitting means for transmitting the packet to the destination port.