Patent ID: 8774179

Claim:
A method, comprising: establishing a respective encapsulation list for each of a plurality of aggregate interfaces of a network device, each of the encapsulation lists specifying addresses for a plurality of member links of the respective aggregate interface, wherein at least one of the encapsulation lists specifies addresses for member links different from members links specified by others of the plurality of encapsulation lists; associating a plurality of masks with the plurality of encapsulation lists of the aggregate interfaces, wherein each of the plurality of masks corresponds to one of the plurality of encapsulation lists, and wherein each of the plurality of masks identifies a current state of each member link in the corresponding aggregate interface, and wherein the current state comprises one of an inactive state and an active state; receiving a data unit; selecting an aggregate interface of the plurality of aggregate interfaces for forwarding the data unit; identifying the encapsulation list for the selected aggregate interface; and selecting the mask that corresponds to the identified encapsulation list; determining active member links in the identified encapsulation list of the selected aggregate interface by identifying active member link addresses in the encapsulation list based on the selected mask; and forwarding the data unit on one of the active member links.