Patent ID: 7826481

Claim:
A network device for processing packets, the network device comprising: at least one legacy component configured to perform basic processing on packets in the network device, and, if the packets require advanced processing, to perform basic processing and transmit the packets to a loop-back port on an advanced component; and at least one advanced component configured to: perform advanced processing on packets in the network device which the legacy component is not configured to perform; upon receiving a packet from the legacy component, disable basic processing; perform the advanced processing on the packet, the advanced processing including: if the packet is an unmodified packet, transmitting the packet to at least one port included in an ingress layer 2 distribution tree, the at least one port being configured to determine whether to send at least one of a layer 2 copy or a layer 3 copy of the packet; and if the packet received from the legacy component is a multicast packet, performing a layer 3 multicast lookup for layer 3 routing information and to assign a layer 3 multicast index to the packet.