Patent ID: 7944811

Claim:
A system comprising: a multicast router having an infrastructure that allows non-stop forwarding (NSF) recovery, wherein data traffic forwarding operations continue throughout a data plane of the multicast router in the presence of a failure of a first multicast component in a control plane of the multicast router; and a second multicast component of the data plane, the second multicast component configured to monitor incoming multicast packets received on an interface of the multicast router, compare the incoming multicast packets with entries of a multicast forwarding table of the data plane to find a route of an entry that matches the incoming multicast packets, wherein at least one entry of the multicast forwarding table indicates the interface is an egress interface for the route, detect multiple multicast forwarders by determining that an incoming multicast packet associated with the route was received on the egress interface for the route, and, in response, prevent multiple multicast forwarders from forwarding multicast packets for the route over a link coupled to the interface during a NSF recovery of a failure of the first multicast component.