Patent ID: 8009671

Claim:
A multicast method, comprising joining a multicast group and forwarding a multicast data packet, the method further comprising: during the joining of the multicast group, sending a join packet based on a Multicast Forwarding Equivalence Class (MFEC) and establishing multicast forwarding instruction information identified by the MFEC, on a network node of a distribution tree or a distribution sub-tree to which the MFEC pertains, wherein multicast data packets passing through the same multicast distribution tree or distribution sub-tree are classified into the MFEC, and multicast data packets from more than one specific multicast stream are classified into the MFEC; and during the forwarding of the multicast data packet, forwarding the multicast data packet according to the multicast forwarding instruction information identified by the MFEC, wherein the multicast data packet is classified into the MFEC, and the forwarding of multicast data packets within the same MFEC comprises forwarding multicast data packets using the same forwarding process through the same multicast distribution tree or distribution sub-tree; configuring, on an egress network node and an ingress network node of the distribution tree or the distribution sub-tree, a mapping relation between the multicast data packets of the same MFEC and the MFEC, and determining the multicast data packet contained in the MFEC; receiving, by the egress network node, the join packet of a receiver host or the join packet of the downstream network node which belong to the multicast data packets of the same MFEC, mapping the join packets for joining different multicast groups into packets based on the MFEC according to the mapping relation, creating multicast forwarding instruction information identified by the MFEC, and adding an outgoing-interface to the multicast forwarding instruction information.