Patent ID: 8094567

Claim:
A method for transferring test messages, wherein a first Network Element (NE) is connected with a second NE through an Ethernet physical link, and the method comprises: negotiating and determining by the first NE and the second NE a logical channel type; constructing, by a Link Management Protocol (LMP) entity of the first NE, a test message packet which carries an Ethernet data interface ID of the first NE; and transferring the test message packet to a packet control module of the first NE, wherein the test message packet further carries a Verify_ID allocated by the second NE; encapsulating, by the packet control module of the first NE, the test message packet according to the logical channel type determined through negotiation and transferring the encapsulated packet which carries the test message packet to a transmitting interface corresponding to the Ethernet data interface ID of the first NE; identifying and receiving by a receiving interface of the second NE connected with the Ethernet physical link the packet, obtaining by a packet control module of the second NE the packet from the receiving interface of the second NE, and decapsulating the packet; transferring by the packet control module of the second NE the test message packet obtained after decapsulation to a LMP entity of the second NE; obtaining by the LMP entity of the second NE a Traffic Engineering (TE) link ID of the second NE and an Ethernet data interface ID of the second NE according to the receiving interface, extracting information in the test message packet, obtaining the Ethernet data interface ID of the first NE, and obtaining a TE link ID of the first NE according to the Verify_ID; and correlating the TE link ID of the second NE with the TE link ID of the first NE, correlating the Ethernet data interface of the second NE with the Ethernet data interface of the first NE, and saving correlation information.