Patent ID: 8170033

Claim:
A method comprising: executing, on a network device, an extended layer three (L3) routing protocol to maintain network topology for a network; with the network device, maintaining a table associated with a Virtual Private Local Area Network Service (VPLS) domain that records associations between pseudowires and layer two (L2) identifiers of customer devices within customer networks attached to an autonomous system (AS) by the network device; and outputting to a receiving device, with the extended L3 routing protocol, a routing protocol control message that specifies a set of L2 identifiers of customer devices attached to an AS and an indicator that specifies a Route Target associated with a the VPLS domain, wherein the specified set of L2 identifiers is obtained by the network device from the table, wherein the routing protocol message instructs the receiving device to flush the specified set of L2 identifiers when the receiving device is a member of the VPLS domain, and wherein the routing protocol control message conforms to a message type of the extended L3 routing protocol to initiate a flush of the specified set of L2 identifiers.