Patent ID: 8687634

Claim:
A method performed by a network entity functioning as a master device and communicating with multiple slave devices on a network for diverting a packet multiple times, comprising: receiving an original packet sent by an upstream device; adding a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) header that carries multi-diversion information to the original packet to generate a modified packet; sending the modified packet with the MPLS header to a first slave device; receiving a processed packet sent by the first slave device, wherein the processed packet comprises the MPLS header that carries multi-diversion information, the multi-diversion information comprises a multi-diversion identifier field, and the multi-diversion identifier field contains data indicating that there is a second slave device to which the processed packet needs to be diverted; determining, according to the multi-diversion identifier field, the second slave device to which the processed packet needs to be diverted; and sending the processed packet to the second slave device.