Patent ID: 7894451

Claim:
A method, performed in, by or for a networking device, of presenting different virtual routers to different end users, classes of service, or packets comprising the steps of: receiving an incoming packet having a VLAN field and at least one additional packet field; forming a key from the VLAN field and the at least one additional packet field; mapping the key into a virtual router identifier using a two-step indirection mapping process, comprising a first step and a second step, the virtual router identifier identifying a particular virtual router configuration from amongst a plurality of possible virtual router configurations, each of which is characterized by a routing table, for use in routing packets at OSI layer three or higher, selected from a plurality of possible routing tables; the first step of the two-step indirection mapping process comprising accessing a table having a plurality of entries, each having a content value and an index value, and locating a matching entry having a content value that matches the key; the second step of the two-step indirection mapping process comprising mapping the index value of the matched entry into the virtual router identifier by using the index value to identify an entry in an associated data store element containing or including the virtual router identifier; configuring the device to have the particular configuration identified by the virtual router identifier by selecting the routing table that characterizes the particular configuration identified by the virtual router identifier for use in routing the packet at OSI layer three or higher; and routing the packet at OSI layer three or higher using the selected routing table that characterizes the particular configuration identified by the virtual router identifier, wherein the number of possible virtual routers is increased by mapping many different key values into the same virtual router identifier through appropriate settings of the index values.