Patent ID: 8243608

Claim:
A method of real-time processing of a connectivity check message, the method comprising: receiving an Ethernet frame over a network by a line card of a network element disposed at an edge of an Ethernet connectivity fault management (CFM) domain; determining, by the line card, that the Ethernet frame includes a continuity check message; examining, by the line card, the continuity check message to determine whether the continuity check message contains correct connection information; maintaining, by the line card, a list of connections in the Ethernet CFM domain supported by the line card; associating, by the line card, a receive timer with each connection in the list of connections; generating, by the line card, an index into the list of connections based on information contained in the continuity check message; identifying a connection in the list of connections based on the index; and resetting, by the line card, the receive timer associated with the identified connection to a preload value in response to the continuity check message containing correct information for that connection.