Patent ID: 7145906

Claim:
A packet switching node comprising: at least three IEEE 802 media access controller (MAC) communications ports, each communications port having associated with it a MAC address; circuitry for, determining if a MAC source address of a received packet has been stored by the node and associated with one of the at least three communications ports at which the packet was received; accessing stored source filtering information associated with a source Internet Protocol (IP) address contained in the received packet and filtering the packet according to the source filtering information; if the MAC source address of the received packet is not stored by the node, or if the MAC source address of the received packet is not associated with the one of the at least three communications ports at which it was most recently received, storing an association of the MAC source address with the one of the at least three communications ports at which the packet was received, and causing the received packet to be forwarded on one of the at least three communications ports with which the received packet's MAC destination address is associated, or, if the received packet's MAC destination address is not associated with any of the at least three communications ports, causing the received packet to be forwarded on all of the at least three communications ports except the one of the at least three communications ports at which the packet was received; and if the MAC source address is associated with the one of the at least three communications ports at which it arrived, causing the received packet to be forwarded on one of the at least three ports with which the packet's MAC destination address is associated or, if the MAC destination address is not associated with any of the at least three ports, causing the received packet to be forwarded on all of the at least three communications ports except the one of the at least three communications ports at which the packet was received.