Patent ID: 7573888

Claim:
A system comprising: a first network device comprising: a send-only interface configured to be coupled to a unidirectional link; a bidirectional interface, wherein the bidirectional interface does not comprise the send-only interface; and a routing module coupled to the send-only interface and to the bidirectional interface, wherein the routing module is configured to send a routing advertisement via the bidirectional interface, the routing advertisement identifies a route leading to the send-only interface, the routing module is configured to maintain a multicast RPF routing table entry that is associated with the unidirectional link, the multicast RPF routing table entry identifies that an infinite efficiency is associated with the unidirectional link, the routing module is configured to maintain a unicast routing table entry that corresponds to the unidirectional link, and the unicast routing table entry identifies that a finite efficiency is associated with the unidirectional link.