Packet forwarding

A packet forwarding method, comprising:

• receiving, by an Input/Output (I/O) board of a Virtual extensible Local Area Network (VXLAN) switch, a packet from a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN), searching out a layer 3 entry matching a destination Internet Protocol (IP) address of the packet from a local layer 3 table;
• when an egress port, in the layer 3 entry is a VXLAN tunnel port, modifying a source Media Access Control (MAC) address of the packet into a gateway MAC address of the VXLAN switch, modifying a destination MAC address of the packet into a MAC address in the layer 3 entry, and sending the modified packet to a fabric board of the VXLAN switch;
• receiving, by the fabric board of the VXLAN switch, the packet sent by the I/O board, determining to perform layer 2 forwarding for the received packet, searching out a MAC entry matching a destination MAC address of the packet from a local MAC table, and when an egress port in the MAC entry is a VXLAN tunnel port, sending the packet to an I/O board associated with the egress port in the MAC entry in the gateway VXLAN switch;
• and
• receiving, by the I/O board associated with the egress port in the MAC entry in the gateway VXLAN switch, the packet sent by the fabric board, adding VXLAN encapsulation to the received packet and forwarding the packet with the VXLAN encapsulation to a VXLAN.