Software FIB ARP FEC encoding

• US 10,530,692 B2
• Filed: 08/23/2016
• Issued: 01/07/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Arista Networks, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Arista Networks, Inc.
• Inventors: Nidumolu, Kalyan, Bhatia, Navdeep
• Primary Examiner(s): Kizou, Hassan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Belur, Deepa
• Application Number:
  US15/244,613
• Publication Number:
  US 20170070431A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,232 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4641 Virtual LANs, VLANs, e.g. virtual private networks [VPN] LAN interconnection over a bridge based backbone H04L12/462; encapsulation techniques H04L12/4633; routing of packets H04L45/00; packet switches H04L49/00; virtual private networks for security H04L63/0272
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/38 Flow based routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/54 Organization of routing tables
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/66 Layer 2 routing, e.g. in Ethernet based MAN's
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/741 Routing in networks with a plurality of addressing schemes, e.g. with both IPv4 and IPv6
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/745 Address table lookup; Address filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/7452 Multiple parallel or consecutive lookup operations lookup operation involving Bloom filters H04L45/7459

Abstract

Described herein are various embodiments of a network element to process routing entries in a forwarding information base (FIB) for hosts that are directly attached to a multi-layer network element to encode address resolution protocol (ARP) data into forwarding equivalence class (FEC) entries for the directly attached hosts. One embodiment provides for a network element comprising a control plane including a forwarding agent and a data plane coupled to the control plane. The data plane can include a forwarding engine to forward a unit of network data from an ingress interface to an egress interface. The forwarding agent can be configured to program the forwarding engine with a forwarding information base having data-link layer forwarding data encoded into a network-layer forwarding entry.

Claims

1. A network device, comprising:

a memory; and

a processing device coupled to the memory, the processing device to;

program a forwarding engine of a data plane with forwarding information, wherein the forwarding information comprises;

a forwarding information base comprising a plurality of forwarding entries; and

a forwarding equivalence class (FEC) table comprising a plurality of FEC entries, wherein;

data link layer forwarding data is encoded into the FEC entries;

each forwarding entry in the forwarding information base is associated with a corresponding FEC entry; and

each FEC comprises an identifier for a virtual network.

2. The network device of claim 1, wherein each forwarding entry comprises:

an Internet Protocol (IP) prefix; and

a route type associated with the IP prefix.

3. The network device of claim 2, wherein each forwarding entry associates a respective prefix with the corresponding FEC entry.

4. The network device of claim 2, wherein each forwarding entry further comprises:

an identifier for the corresponding FEC entry.

5. The network device of claim 2, wherein:

the route type comprises an attached route type;

the attached route type is for a host that is coupled to a port of the network device.

6. The network device of claim 1, wherein the FEC includes a single FEC entry per virtual network.

7. The network device of claim 1, wherein the data link layer forwarding data is derived from an address resolution protocol table.

8. The network device of claim 1, wherein each FEC entry is further associated with a media access control (MAC) address and a physical port.

9. The network device as in claim 6, wherein to program the forwarding engine of the data plane with the forwarding information, the processing device is further to:

derive an IP address based on an IP prefix;

derive an Ethernet address from the IP address and a virtual network identifier;

derive a physical port from the virtual network identifier and the Ethernet address.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one FEC entry is associated with multiple forwarding entries.

11. The network device of claim 1, wherein the memory and the processing device are included in a control plane of the network device.

12. The network device of claim 1, wherein the forwarding engine is to forward a unit of network data based on the forwarding information base and the FEC table.

13. A method, comprising:

programing a forwarding engine of a data plane with forwarding information, wherein the forwarding information comprises;

a forwarding information base comprising a plurality of forwarding entries;

and a forwarding equivalence class (FEC) table comprising a plurality of FEC entries, wherein;

data link layer forwarding data is encoded into the FEC entries;

each forwarding entry in the forwarding information base is associated with a corresponding FEC entry; and

each FEC entry comprises an identifier for a virtual network; and

forwarding network data based on the forwarding information.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein each forwarding entry comprises:

an Internet Protocol (IP) prefix; and

a route type associated with the IP prefix.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein each forwarding entry associates a respective prefix with the corresponding FEC entry.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein each forwarding entry further comprises:

an identifier for the corresponding FEC entry.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the FEC includes a single FEC entry per virtual network.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein each FEC entry is further associated with a media access control (MAC) address and a physical port.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein at least one FEC entry is associated with multiple forwarding entries.

20. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having executable instructions to cause one or more processing units to perform a method to process control plane data in a network element, the method comprising:

programing a forwarding engine of a data plane with forwarding information, wherein the forwarding information comprises;

a forwarding information base comprising a plurality of forwarding entries;

and a forwarding equivalence class (FEC) table comprising a plurality of FEC entries, wherein;

data link layer forwarding data is encoded into the FEC entries;

each forwarding entry in the forwarding information base is associated with a corresponding FEC entry; and

each FEC entry comprises an identifier for a virtual network; and

forwarding network data based on the forwarding information.