Patent ID: 8160074

Claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: scanning forwarding database (FDB) entries in a memory of a network device, the network device comprising a plurality of ports, wherein each port of the plurality of ports on the network device maintaining an FDB in the memory, wherein scanning comprises: reading an FDB entry in memory; determining the state of a read bit associated with the FDB entry; and if the state of the read bit indicates an unread state for the FDB entry: updating the state of the read bit associated with the FDB entry to indicate that the FDB entry has been read, including propagating the updated state of the read bit to FDB entries in the memory having the MAC address, and adding a MAC address of the FDB entry to a buffer; and automatically sending to a management module a filtered list of FDB entries, wherein automatically sending the filtered list of FDB entries comprises sending media access control (MAC) addresses in the buffer to the management module when buffer usage reaches a threshold associated with previously unread FDB entries.