Patent ID: 7454610

Claim:
A packet processing method comprising: receiving a plurality of packets; receiving a security association handle for each packet in the plurality of packets, wherein the security association handle includes a set of selectors; for each packet, identifying a flow entry for the packet, including: determining a flow element address for the packet, retrieving a first flow element using the flow element address, wherein the first flow element includes a plurality of flow entries, determining whether a selector in the set of security association handle selectors is present in one of the plurality of flow entries, and retrieving a second flow element if a selector in the set of security association handle selectors is not present in one of the plurality of flow entries; retrieving security association information for each packet using the identified flow entry; generating header information for each of the plurality of packets; adding the header information to each of the plurality of packets to generate encapsulated packets; and distributing the encapsulated packets to a plurality of cryptographic processors.