Patent ID: 8625594

Claim:
A network device, comprising: a plurality of physical ports; a packet processor coupled to the plurality of physical ports, wherein the packet processor is configured to: assign a virtual port from a plurality of virtual ports to a packet received via one of the physical ports, wherein a quantity of the plurality of virtual ports is larger than a quantity of the plurality of physical ports, and wherein, for each of at least some of the physical ports, multiple virtual ports correspond to one physical port, assign a virtual domain from a plurality of virtual domains to the packet based on the assigned virtual port, wherein the assigned virtual domain corresponds to a group of virtual ports within the plurality of virtual ports, and process the packet based on one or more of i) the assigned virtual port, ii) the assigned virtual domain, and iii) a header field of the packet, wherein processing the packet includes determining zero, one, or more physical ports to which the packet is to be forwarded.