Patent ID: 8639837

Claim:
A method, comprising using, at a network device, sets of packet classification rules having associated matching criteria for Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Layer 2-Layer 4 (L2-L4) packet information to select traffic flows made up of various packets received at the network device for processing at OSI Layer 7 (L7) at the network device; carrying classification information computed at an L2-L4 processing module of the network device with those of the traffic flows so selected so that the classification information is available to an L7 processing module of the network device during the traffic flow processing at L7; and determining, at the L7 processing module, an action to be performed on one or more of the selected traffic flows using the classification information computed at the L2-L4 processing module, provided for a given interface of the network device on which the one or more of the packets are received, the network device is configured to (i) not reject inbound packets and (ii) allow interception of packets, thereby avoiding a need to repeat, at the L7 processing module, classification activities already undertaken at the L2-L4 processing module.