Patent ID: 7558217

Claim:
In a bridged network having a plurality of hosts coupled to a plurality of segments interconnected by at least one bridge, a method for initializing host location information in response to a network topology change, comprising: obtaining prior host location information, said prior host location information being at least a partial representation of host locations in the bridged network before the network topology change, and said prior host location information comprising segment identifier information; obtaining hints about changes in host locations as a result of the network topology change; modifying the prior host location information according to said hints to obtain initial host location information, said initial host location information comprising at least a valid host location or a value indicative of an unknown host location, after the network topology change; wherein the bridged network includes a root bridge and at least one other bridge, and obtaining hints about host location changes comprises: receiving from the at least one other bridge local topology information associated with the at least one other bridge; and inferring segment-renaming hints from the received local topology information and local topology information associated with the root bridge; wherein obtaining prior host location information comprises extracting host location information stored in the root bridge; wherein obtaining the prior host location information further comprises sending from the root bridge to the at least one other bridge a request for additional host location information and receiving from the at least one other bridge the additional host location information; and wherein the host location information stored in the root bridge includes a list of hosts each mapped to an identifier of a segment to which the host was coupled before the network topology change, and wherein the request for additional host location information includes a list of segment identifiers in the host location information stored in the root bridge.