Patent ID: 7355970

Claim:
A network switch for network communications, said network switch comprising: a data port interface, said data port interface supporting a plurality of data ports transmitting and receiving data; a CPU interface, said CPU interface configured to communicate with a CPU; a memory management unit, said memory management unit including a memory interface for communicating data from said data port interface to switch memory; and a communication channel, communicating data and messaging information between said data port interface, the CPU interface, said switch memory, and said memory management unit; wherein said data port interface further comprises an access control unit configured to decode packets and extract information from a transportation layer, configured to dynamically update filter rules to add a new filter rule to an initial set of filter rules, wherein the initial set of filter rules is based on an access control list, and the new filter rule is based on the extracted information from the transportation layer, configured to filter the incoming packets through application of the dynamically updated filter rules, and configured to take selective action on the packets by applying the dyamically updated filter rules, wherein a dynamic handling of packets and a controlling of data traffic are achieved when precise identifiers of packet data are not known initially.