Network unit for forwarding an ethernet packet
AssigneeAlcatel
InventorsJohan Marie Camiel Moreels, Nico Alfred Anna Janssens
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Abstract
An extractor extracts from the payload of the Layer 2 packet a destination Layer 3 address of the Layer 3 packet. A forwarding engine, for in response to the extraction, with the destination Layer 3 address retrieves from a forwarding database an associated interface. The forwarding database includes at least one association between one of the plurality of interfaces and at least one Layer 3 address. Upon reception of the destination Layer 3 address having a full match with one of the Layer 3 addresses, the forwarding database provides the interface which is associated to the Layer 3 address. The network unit forwards the Layer 2 packet to the provided associated interface.
Claims15
A network unit in a telecommunication network for forwarding a Layer 2 packet being received at a receiving interface of a plurality of interfaces of said network unit, a payload of said Layer 2 packet comprising a Layer 3 packet, wherein said network unit comprises:
- an extractor which extracts from said payload of said Layer 2 packet a destination Layer 3 address of said Layer 3 packet;
- and
- a forwarding engine, which, for in response to said extraction, with said destination Layer 3 address retrieves from a forwarding database an associated interface;
- said forwarding database, comprising at least one association between one of said plurality of interfaces and at least one Layer 3 address, for upon reception of said destination Layer 3 address having a full match with one of said Layer 3 addresses, providing the associated interface of said plurality of interfaces being associated to said one Layer 3 address;
- thereby enabling said network unit to forward said Layer 2 packet to said associated interface,
- wherein the forwarding engine, upon failing of the full match with one of said Layer 3 addresses of the forwarding database, replicates and forwards the Layer 2 packet to a predetermined plurality of the plurality of interfaces.
A method to forward in a telecommunication network a Layer 2 packet being received at an interface of a plurality of interfaces of a network unit, a payload of said Layer 2 packet comprising a Layer 3 packet, the method comprising:
- providing, in a forwarding database, at least one association between one of said plurality of interfaces and at least one Layer 3 address;
- and
- extracting by an extractor from the payload of said Layer 2 packet a destination Layer 3 address of said Layer 3 packet;
- in response to said extraction, retrieving by a forwarding engine, with said destination Layer 3 address having a full match with one of said Layer 3 addresses, from said forwarding database the associated interface of said plurality of interfaces being associated to said one Layer 3 address,
- thereby enabling said network unit to forward said Layer 2 packet to said associated interface;
- and
- upon failing of the full match with one of the Layer 3 addresses of the forwarding database, replicating and forwarding the Layer 2 packet to a predetermined plurality of the plurality of interfaces.
A network unit of a telecommunication network for forwarding a Layer 2 packet being received at a receiving interface of a plurality of interfaces of the network unit, wherein a payload of the Layer 2 packet comprises a Layer 3 packet, the network unit comprising:
- an extractor to extract from the payload of the Layer 2 packet a destination address of the Layer 3 packet;
- a forwarding database comprising a look up table comprising at least one association between one of the plurality of interfaces and at least one Layer 3 address, which database receives the extracted destination Layer 3 packet address and performs a search to locate a full match between the extracted destination Layer 3 packet address and one of the Layer 3 addresses in the table;
- and
- a forwarding engine, which retrieves an interface associated with the extracted destination Layer 3 packet address from the forwarding database based on the located full match Layer 3 address and forwards the Layer 2 packet to the retrieved interface,
- wherein the forwarding database generates a “no full match found” message if the full match between the extracted destination Layer 3 packet address and one of the Layer 3 addresses in the table is not found and provides the generated message to the forwarding engine.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.