Technique for efficiently and dynamically maintaining bidirectional forwarding detection on a bundle of links

An apparatus comprising:

• one or more line cards coupled to a plurality of links;
• and
• one or more processors configured to execute software processes, the software processes including a bidirectional forwarding detection (BFD) process that when executed is operable to:
• configure the plurality of links as a link bundle,
• establish one or more standby BFD sessions, each standby BFD session associated with one or more links of the link bundle, wherein a standby state associated with the one or more standby BFD sessions is an internal state that is not signaled in a state field of transmitted BFD messages
• establish an active BFD session, the active BFD session associated with one or more links of the link bundle,
• in response to determining non-receipt of returned BFD messages for the active BFD session, select one or more new active BFD sessions from the one or more standby BFD sessions, and
• in response to determining non-receipt of returned BFD messages for the one or more new active BFD sessions, determine the link bundle has failed.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions when executed by one or more processors operable to:

• configure a plurality of links as a link bundle;
• establish one or more standby bidirectional forwarding detection (BFD) sessions, each standby BFD session associated with one or more links of the link bundle, wherein a standby state associated with the one or more standby BFD sessions is an internal state that is not signaled in a state field of transmitted BFD messages;
• establish an active BFD session, the active BFD session associated with one or more links of the link bundle;
• and
• in response to a determination of non-receipt of returned BFD messages for the active BFD session, select one or more new active BFD sessions from the one or more standby BFD sessions.