Patent ID: 7397795

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a plurality of forwarding elements to receive a data packet from a network and to forward the data packet to a next hop in the network; and a control element coupled to the plurality of forwarding elements to control the forwarding elements and to determine a path through one or more of the plurality of forwarding elements from an ingress port of one of the plurality of forwarding elements to an egress port of another of the plurality of forwarding elements when the ingress port and the egress port are not located on a same forwarding element, wherein each forwarding element to have one or more label switch tables with one or more entries to label the data packet for forwarding along the path from the ingress port to the egress port from which the data packet is to be transmitted to the next hop in the network, and wherein each entry in the one or more switch tables specifies deducting one from the Time to Live (TTL) indicator for the data packet when the data packet arrives at a first one of the plurality of forwarding elements and deducting zero from the TTL indicator for the data packet if the data packet is forwarded to another of the plurality of forwarding elements.