US 7,889,711 B1Granted

Filtering traffic based on associated forwarding equivalence classes

AssigneeJuniper Networks, Inc.

InventorsIna Minei, James Washburn, Shivani Aggarwal

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

Filters are selectively applied to packets depending on forwarding equivalence classes (FECs) of the packets. A FEC filter is defined within the network device and qualified by incoming interface information that identifies source sites of the packets. A label distribution protocol (LDP) FEC is configured such that packets of the given FEC are associated with the FEC filter. The FEC identifies a destination site of the packets received by the router and is automatically combined with incoming interface information. In this way, packet flows may be filtered based on FECs of the packets. FEC filters may be further refined to operate at forwarding class granularity. The techniques allow accurate billing of packets traveling between specific source and destination sites regardless of the number of interfaces of the network device the packets utilize. In addition, the filtering can be used to provide anti-spoofing capabilities.

Claims42

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

receiving, with a routing engine of a network device, configuration data defining a forwarding equivalence class (FEC) filter that associates a label distribution protocol (LDP) FEC with one or more actions, wherein the network device is positioned between an ingress network device and an egress network device for a label switched path (LSP);
installing, with the routing engine of the network device, the FEC filter within forwarding information of a packet forwarding engine of the network device so as to associate the FEC filter with a next hop of the forwarding information corresponding to the LDP FEC;
receiving, with the packet forwarding engine of the network device positioned between the ingress network device and the egress network device for the LSP, a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) data packet having an MPLS label that corresponds to the LSP in accordance with a label distribution protocol (LDP);
examining, with the packet forwarding engine of the network device, the forwarding information to select a next hop for the packet based on the MPLS label of the received MPLS packet;
determining, with the packet forwarding engine, an MPLS label associated with the selected next hop to be used in place of the MPLS label of the received MPLS data packet when forwarding the MPLS packet to the selected next hop;
and
selectively applying, with the packet forwarding engine of the network device, the FEC filter to the MPLS data packet when the selected next hop for the MPLS data packet is associated with the FEC filter by the forwarding information to perform the one or more actions of the FEC filter, wherein selectively applying the FEC filter includes applying the FEC filter before forwarding the MPLS data packet to the selected next hop.

4 more elements

A network device comprising:

a packet forwarding engine that includes forwarding information defining a next hop for a label distribution protocol (LDP) forwarding equivalence class (FEC);
and
a routing engine that receives configuration data defining a FEC filter that associates the LDP FEC with one or more actions and installs the FEC filter within the forwarding information so as to associate the FEC filter with the next hop of the forwarding information corresponding to the LDP FEC,
wherein the network device is positioned between an ingress network device and an egress network device for a label switched path (LSP), and
wherein the packet forwarding engine further receives a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) data packet having an MPLS label that corresponds to the LSP in accordance with a label distribution protocol (LDP), examines the forwarding information to select a next hop for the data packet based on the MPLS label of the received MPLS packet, determines an MPLS label associated with the selected next hop to be used in place of the MPLS label of the received MPLS data packet when forwarding the MPLS packet to the selected next hop, and selectively applies the FEC filter to the MPLS data packet when the selected next hop for the MPLS data packet is associated with the FEC filter by the forwarding information to perform the one or more actions of the FEC filter,
wherein the packet forwarding engine applies the FEC filter before forwarding the MPLS data packet to the selected next hop.

3 more elements

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that cause a programmable processor to:

receive, with a routing engine of a network device, configuration data defining forwarding equivalence class (FEC) filter that associates a label distribution protocol (LDP) FEC with one or more actions, wherein the network device is positioned between an ingress network device and an egress network device for a label switched path (LSP);
install, with the routing engine of the network device, the FEC filter within forwarding information of a packet forwarding engine of the network device so as to associate the FEC filter with a next hop of the forwarding information corresponding to the LDP FEC;
receive, with the packet forwarding engine of the network device positioned between the ingress network device and the egress network device for the LSP, a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) data packet having an MPLS label that corresponds to the LSP in accordance with a label distribution protocol (LDP);
examine, with the packet forwarding engine of the network device, the forwarding information to select a next hop for the packet based on the MPLS label of the received MPLS packet;
determine, with the packet forwarding engine, an MPLS label associated with the selected next hop to be used in place of the MPLS label of the received MPLS data packet when forwarding the MPLS packet to the selected next hop;
and
selectively apply, with the packet forwarding engine of the network device, the FEC filter to the MPLS data packet when the selected next hop for the MPLS data packet is associated with the FEC filter by the forwarding information to perform the one or more actions of the FEC filter, wherein, to selectively apply the FEC filter, the instructions cause the processor to apply the FEC filter before forwarding the MPLS data packet to the selected next hop.

4 more elements

A method comprising:

receiving, with a routing engine of a network device, configuration data defining a forwarding equivalence class (FEC) filter that associates a label distribution protocol (LDP) FEC with one or more actions, wherein the network device is positioned between an ingress network device and an egress network device for a label switched path (LSP), and wherein the one or more actions include at least one of updating customer account information, counting data packets, marking data packets, or discarding data packets;
installing, with the routing engine of the network device, the FEC filter into routing information of the routing engine in a manner that correlates the FEC filter with a next hop of the LSP associated with the FEC;
installing, with the routing engine of the network device, the FEC filter within forwarding information of a packet forwarding engine of the network device in a manner that associates the FEC filter with an MPLS label corresponding to the next hop of the LSP associated with the FEC;
receiving, with the packet forwarding engine of the network device positioned between the ingress network device and the egress network device for the LSP, a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) data packet having an MPLS label that corresponds to the LSP in accordance with a label distribution protocol (LDP);
examining, with the packet forwarding engine of the network device, the forwarding information to select the label corresponding the next hop for the packet based on the MPLS label of the received MPLS packet, wherein the label is to be used by the packet forwarding engine in place of the MPLS label of the received MPLS data packet when forwarding the MPLS packet to the selected next hop;
and
applying, with the packet forwarding engine of the network device, the FEC filter to the MPLS data packet when the selected next hop for the MPLS data packet is associated with the FEC filter by the forwarding information to perform the one or more actions of the FEC filter.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.