Patent ID: 7333491

Claim:
A method for packet forwarding implemented by a switch controller comprising an address table and a multicast router table, comprising steps of: configuring a port map according to a destination Media Access Control (MAC) address of a received packet and the address table; updating the multicast router table and configuring the port map as all ports of the switch controller if the received packet is an Internet Protocol (IP) packet and a protocol used in the received packet is one of Core Base Trees (CBT) and Protocol Independent Multicast Version (PIM v2); updating the multicast router table and configuring the port map as the all ports if the received packet is an IP packet and a message of the received packet is selected from a group consisting of an Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Query message, a Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP) message, and a PIM v1message; updating the address table and configuring the port map as all router ports of the switch controller if the received packet is an IP packet and the message of the received packet is one of an IGMP Report message and an IGMP Leave message and a destination IP address of the received packet does not lie in a specific scope of IP multicast addresses; and forwarding the received packet according to the port map, wherein each entry of the address table comprises an address field corresponding to a first MAC address and a port timer field for each of the all ports to record a valid time for corresnondence between the each port and the first MAC address.