Patent ID: 7970948

Claim:
A network router, comprising: a plurality of interfaces; and a chain walker which, upon receipt of a first protocol packet in a first interface, processes the packet by walking the packet through a decapsulation chain associated with the first interface and the first protocol and an encapsulation chain associated with an identified second interface and identified second protocol, the chain walker passing the packet to elements of the decapsulation chain to produce a decapsulated packet, and the chain walker passing the decapsulated packet to elements of an encapsulation chain to produce an encapsulated packet, each of said chains comprising at least one packet-processing element, elements in a chain being linked, an element receiving the packet from the chain walker as processed by a previous element and further processing the packet as appropriate, wherein the chain walker, upon receipt of the first protocol packet, passes said packet to elements of a demultiplexor chain associated with the first interface to produce a demultiplexed packet, the demultiplexed packet being passed to the decapsulation chain, the demultiplexor chain, responsive to protocol information contained in the received packet, specifies a decapsulation chain to which the packet should be passed.