Patent ID: 8139492

Claim:
A router comprising: a plurality of routing chassis connected by one or more inter-chassis links and operating as a single node within a network, wherein a first routing chassis and a second routing chassis of the router each include an egress interface to a network destination; a packet forwarding engine on the first routing chassis, wherein the packet forwarding engine implements a forwarding path preference to select the egress interface of the first routing chassis to reduce utilization of an inter-chassis link from the first routing chassis to the second routing chassis by network packets destined for the network destination, and wherein the packet forwarding engine forwards the network packets to the network destination via the egress interface of the first routing chassis based on the forwarding path preference; and a set of routing protocols executing within a routing engine of a master routing chassis of the router, wherein the routing protocols exchange routing information with other routers, update routing data based on the exchanged routing information, and generate forwarding data based on the routing data, wherein the egress interface of the first routing chassis and the egress interface of the second routing chassis are coupled to respective physical communication links, and wherein the packet forwarding engine of the first routing chassis comprises: a forwarding information base; a routing engine interface module to receive forwarding data from the routing engine, wherein the forwarding data includes a forwarding entry for the network destination that specifies the egress interface of the first routing chassis and the egress interface of the second routing chassis; and a forwarding bias module that implements the forwarding preference by modifying the forwarding entry and installing the modified forwarding entry in the forwarding information base.