Patent ID: 7953088

Claim:
A network device comprising: a classification unit, wherein said classification unit is configured to assign a packet to a class by virtue of being configured to classify said packet based on a time-to-live (TTL) value in a TTL field in a packet header of said packet, wherein said class corresponds to a range, said range is one of a plurality of ranges, and each of said plurality of ranges comprises a range of TTL values, assign a TTL classification value to said packet in response to classifying said packet, by virtue of being configured to modify a flow label field of the packet header to include the TTL classification value, wherein a number of bits used to represent the TTL classification value is less than a number of bits used to represent the TTL value, and determine an action to be taken with regard to said packet, wherein said determination is based on said TTL classification value, said determination is performed using a plurality of rules, and at least one of said rules is configurable.