Patent ID: 7453818

Claim:
An apparatus configured to identify potential forwarding loops in a network, the apparatus comprising: a plurality of packet receivers configured to receive packets, with each of said received packets including an address in the source address field in the header of said received packets identifying the source of the packet; a forwarding data structure configured for storing associations of said addresses with particular packet receivers; a network topology updater configured to perform Spanning Tree Protocol including sending of Hello messages at intervals of a predetermined Hello time and to update the forwarding data structure; a moved data structure configured for storing addresses whose corresponding packet receiver has recently moved; and a loop detector configured to manage recently moved addresses using the moved data structure in order to identify a potential routing loop when a movement for a same address has occurred n times within a predefined time duration, with n being an integer of at least two, wherein the predefined time duration is less or equal to approximately twice the Hello time; wherein the loop detector is configured to notify a loop corrector to respond to said identification of the potential routing loop.