Patent ID: 8619772

Claim:
A router supporting tracing of a packet, comprising: a first service module configured to: receive the packet through a network interface; a memory module configured to: store a tracing extension header comprising an identifier of the first service module of the router and a tracing identifier of a tracing associated with the packet in the router, wherein the tracing extension header is stored following the reception of the packet by the first service module; and a second service module configured to: receive the packet from the first service module; wherein the first service module is further configured to: append the tracing extension header to the packet and to forward the packet to the second service module, generate the tracing identifier, if the packet does not comprise the tracing extension header upon reception of the packet by the first service module and read the tracing identifier from the packet, if the packet comprises the tracing extension header upon reception of the packet by the first service module, wherein the second service module is further configured to: store the tracing extension header in the memory module following the reception of the packet by the second service module, and to add an identifier of the second service module to the tracing extension header before storing the tracing extension header in the memory module; wherein the tracing identifier, together with the identifier of the first service module, uniquely identifies the tracing in the first service module.