Patent ID: 8681641

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a reverse path forwarding check frame at a first port of an Ethernet device, the reverse path forwarding check frame including a source identifier, a destination identifier, and a virtual local area network identifier (VID); extracting the VID and the destination identifier; accessing a VID table using the VID to look up an ingress property of the first port associated with the VID in the VID table, wherein the VID table includes fields having the VID, ingress property and egress property of the first port, wherein the ingress property includes information that indicates whether the reverse path forwarding check frame is allowed to enter through the first port and wherein the egress property includes information that indicates whether the reverse path forwarding check frame is allowed to exit through the first port; performing an ingress check to determine if the reverse path forwarding check frame is allowed to enter through the first port by determining whether the ingress property of the first port included in the VID table indicates that the reverse path forwarding check frame is allowed to enter through the first port, wherein the reverse path forwarding check frame is dropped in response to the ingress property of the first port included in the VID table indicating that the reverse path forwarding check frame is not allowed to enter through the first port; accessing a filtering database to determine a second port on which to forward the reverse path forwarding check frame in response to the ingress property of the first port included in the VID table indicating that the reverse path forwarding check frame is allowed to enter through the first port, the filtering database including a field having both the VID and the destination identifier; and accessing the VID table using the VID to look up a further egress property of the second port associated with the VID in the VID table to determine whether the reverse path forwarding check frame is allowed to exit through the second port in response to accessing the filtering database, wherein the VID table includes fields having the VID, further ingress property and the further egress property of the second port, wherein the further ingress property includes information that indicates whether the reverse path forwarding check frame is allowed to enter through the second port and wherein the further egress property includes information that indicates whether the reverse path forwarding check frame is allowed to exit through the second port.