Patent ID: 8452893

Claim:
A member device in a stacking apparatus, comprising: a forwarding table size obtaining unit, adapted to obtain a size of a forwarding table of each member device in the stacking apparatus; a proxy device choosing unit, adapted to choose another member device which has the largest forwarding table in the stacking apparatus as a proxy device when there is another member device whose forwarding table is larger than the forwarding table of the member device according to an obtaining result of the forwarding table size obtaining unit; a forwarding control unit, adapted to establish a proxy entry whose egress information points to a Module Identity (MODID) of the proxy device and whose priority is lower than that of an original forwarding entry in the member device, remove at least one original route whose mask is shorter than the other original routes in original forwarding entries from the forwarding table; forward to-be-transmitted traffic according to the original forwarding entries which is chosen in order of priority after receiving the to-be-transmitted traffic; and forward a to-be-forwarded packet which fails to match contents of any original forwarding entry to an interface of the proxy device that is identified by the MODID in the proxy entry.