Patent ID: 7447225

Claim:
A method for preventing multiple multicast forwarders from forwarding multicast packets for a route over a link in a computer network during non-stop forwarding (NSF) recovery of a failure in a control plane of a multicast router, the method comprising the steps of: populating entries of a multicast forwarding table of the router with routes, each route entry specifying an ingress interface for accepting an incoming multicast packet at the router and a list of egress interfaces for forwarding the incoming packet from the router; receiving the incoming multicast packet on an interface of the router; matching a route entry of the multicast forwarding table with the incoming multi-cast packet; discovering that the interface is an egress interface of the list of egress interfaces for the matching route entry; and halting forwarding of the incoming multicast packet over the egress interface to thereby prevent multiple multicast forwarders from forwarding multicast packets for the route over the link during NSF recovery.