Patent ID: 7263099

Claim:
A method comprising: identifying a set of interfaces of a network router from a first multicast list of a plurality of multicast lists; identifying packet replicators associated with the identified interfaces, wherein the packet replicators are distributed across multiple ones of the interfaces; generating a hierarchical data structure that represents a hierarchical relationship of packet replicators distributed across the multiple interfaces in the network router by determining a starting entry of the first multicast list based on at least an index number of the first multicast list from a data structure that maintains the plurality of multicast lists, populating a base node of the hierarchical data structure with one of the packet replicators associated with the determined starting entry of the first multicast list, and populating the hierarchical data structure with the respective packet replicators associated with ascending entries of the first multicast list; and replicating a multicast packet in the packet replicators according to the hierarchical data structure.