Patent ID: 8400912

Claim:
A packet switch operating method for activating a layer two Ethernet tunnel upon receipt of an Ethernet control packet, comprising: receiving, at a packet switch, an Ethernet control packet from another packet switch, the packet switch and the other packet switch being coupled together by two or more tunnels comprising Ethernet tunnels defined by one or more Ethernet identifiers, the Ethernet control packet indicating that a particular one of the tunnels is active on the other packet switch and indicating that all of the tunnels other than the particular tunnel are inactive on the other packet switch and the Ethernet control packet being an Ethernet connectivity fault management protocol data unit (CFMPDU) having one or more type length value (TLV) fields providing the indication that the particular one of the tunnels is active on the other packet switch; prior to expiration of a continuity check message (CCM) loss interval and in response to receiving the Ethernet control packet, activating on the packet switch the particular tunnel as defined by the one or more Ethernet identifiers indicated by the received control packet, wherein the receiving and activating are performed with and based on Ethernet packets comprising the Ethernet control packet; in response to receiving the Ethernet control packet, deactivating one of the tunnels that was active when the Ethernet control packet was received by configuring the packet switch to forward only Ethernet control packets to the deactivated tunnel; and wherein the tunnels comprise a first set of tunnels and a second set of different tunnels, the first set of tunnels relaying packets only from the packet switch to the other packet switch and the second set of tunnels relaying packets only from the other packet switch to the packet switch, wherein only one tunnel of the first set is active at a time, the other tunnels of the first set being inactive and only one tunnel of the second set is activate at a time, the other tunnels of the second set being inactive and wherein the receiving the Ethernet control packet comprises receiving the Ethernet control packet from one of the tunnels of the second set of tunnels.