Patent ID: 8599858

Claim:
A packet processor, comprising: an aging table that includes a plurality of records corresponding to a plurality of network links supported by the packet processor, a plurality of bits as aging period index field configured to index an aging period table and an age state field of a length that is a function of a maximum number of keep alive messages, the aging period table configured to store a plurality of age periods assigned to one or more of the network links and determine a period between arrivals of the keep alive messages on the network links, each record in the aging table used to track an aging status of a corresponding network link; a binding module that associates a received message with a record in the aging table, based on information in the received message; and an aging daemon that scans the aging table, updates the aging status of each network link, and determines that a network link has failed when the updated aging status for the respective network link exceeds a predetermined threshold.