Patent ID: 8125914

Claim:
A method of configuring Ethernet connectivity fault management (CFM) in a network including a plurality of nodes, the method comprising: configuring a maintenance domain on a first network node; configuring a maintenance association within the maintenance domain on the first network node; configuring, within the maintenance association, a local maintenance endpoint (MEP) on the first network node; establishing a point-to-point connection within a single maintenance association, the point-to-point connection established between the local MEP and a remote MEP on a network node of the plurality of network nodes using an identifier of the remote MEP and a source Media Access Control (MAC) address of the remote MEP in a configuration storage; processing a unicast CFM message received from the remote MEP after a source MAC address of the received unicast CFM message matches a source MAC address stored for the remote MEP in the configuration storage; and generating a CFM message for unicast transmission to the remote MEP, the CFM message including at least one field containing information tailored to the remote MEP; and transmitting the CFM message over the point-to-point connection corresponding to the remote MEP.