Patent ID: 8879552

Claim:
A network node for packet data processing, the network node comprising: a time-transfer protocol processing unit adapted to generate negotiation messages and management messages for a time-transfer protocol and to forward said negotiation and management messages to one or more remote network nodes, via one or more line ports, and a network processor unit consisting of separate hardware resources from the time-transfer protocol processing unit and adapted to perform routing operations, or switching operations, or both, on first data packets received from the one or more line ports and transmitted on one or more backplane ports and second data packets received from the one or more backplane ports and transmitted on the one or more line ports, wherein the first and second data packets do not include time-transfer protocol timestamp data; receive a configuration message from the time-transfer protocol processing unit, the configuration message comprising stream configuration data for a first type of repetitive time-transfer message; generate a plurality of time-transfer messages according to the first type of repetitive time-transfer message, using the stream configuration data; forward said plurality of time-transfer messages to the one or more remote network nodes, via the one or more line ports; wherein the network processor unit is adapted to generate the plurality of time-transfer messages of the first type by inserting incremented sequence identifiers into successive ones of the time-transfer messages; wherein the time-transfer messages each comprise a time-transfer protocol field that is copied from the stream configuration data and unchanged by the network processor unit; wherein the time-transfer protocol field is one of a clock quality field, a priority field, and a universal time offset field.