Patent ID: 8395996

Claim:
A method performed by a network device, the method comprising: determining, by a failure detection protocol packet handler, if a failure detection protocol packet received by the network device is to be forwarded to a processor configured to execute software for processing failure detection protocol packets, the determining performed based upon information from the failure detection protocol packet; and dropping, by the network device, the failure detection protocol packet prior to the failure detection protocol packet being processed by the processor upon determining that the failure detection protocol packet is not to be forwarded to the processor; wherein the determining comprises: identifying a first entry from a first set of entries using a hash result obtained based upon information from the failure detection protocol packet; upon determining, based upon the comparing, that first information from the failure detection protocol packet matches information stored by the first entry, identifying a second entry from a second set of entries, each entry in the second set of entries corresponding to a session, the second entry corresponding to a session related to the failure detection protocol packet; and determining whether the failure detection protocol packet is to be forwarded to the processor based upon second information contained in one or more fields of the failure detection protocol packet and reference information stored in the second entry; and changing a portion of information in the second entry.