Patent ID: 8295282

Claim:
A method for synchronizing a plurality of forwarding databases of a respective plurality of line cards, the line cards comprising a first line card and a second line card, the method comprising: receiving a data packet at the first line card, wherein the data packet comprises a source address and is received via an ingress port, wherein the first line card comprises a forwarding database including a plurality of entries, wherein each of the entries includes respective entry information comprising a source address, an ingress port, and an aging timestamp; in response to a determination that one of the entries of the forwarding database includes the source address of the received packet and the ingress port via which the packet is received, determining whether the aging timestamp of the one of the entries satisfies a refresh threshold; when the aging timestamp of the one of the entries satisfies the refresh threshold, resetting the aging timestamp of the one of the entries and generating a control packet adapted to enable an address refresh operation to be performed for the source address on the second line card; and propagating the control packet toward the second line card via a data forwarding path between the first line card and the second line card.