HARDWARE-ACCELERATED PACKET MULTICASTING IN A VIRTUAL ROUTING SYSTEM
First Claim
1. A method for packet multicasting comprising:
- receiving a multicast packet at an ingress system of a packet-forwarding engine (PFE);
the ingress system identifying a plurality of flow classification indices for the multicast packet;
for each instance of multicasting, the ingress system sending a single copy of the multicast packet and the plurality of flow classification indices to an egress system of the PFE;
buffering the single copy of the multicast packet in a memory accessible by the egress system; and
the egress system preparing the multicast packet for transmission by for each flow classification index of the plurality of flow classification indices, identifying corresponding transform control instructions based on the flow classification index, reading the single copy of the multicast packet from the memory, causing the multicast packet to be transformed in accordance with the identified transform control instructions and outputting the transformed multicast packet.
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Abstract
Methods and systems are provided for hardware-accelerated packet multicasting in a virtual routing system. According to one embodiment, a multicast packet is received at an ingress system of a packet-forwarding engine (PFE). The ingress system identifies flow classification indices for the multicast packet. Then, for each instance of multicasting, the ingress system sends a single copy of the multicast packet and the flow classification indices to an egress system of the PFE. The single copy of the multicast packet is buffered in a memory accessible by the egress system. The egress system prepares the multicast packet for transmission by for each flow classification index, identifying corresponding transform control instructions based on the flow classification index, reading the single copy of the multicast packet from the memory, causing the multicast packet to be transformed in accordance with the identified transform control instructions and outputting the transformed multicast packet.
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Citations
18 Claims
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1. A method for packet multicasting comprising:
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receiving a multicast packet at an ingress system of a packet-forwarding engine (PFE);
the ingress system identifying a plurality of flow classification indices for the multicast packet;
for each instance of multicasting, the ingress system sending a single copy of the multicast packet and the plurality of flow classification indices to an egress system of the PFE;
buffering the single copy of the multicast packet in a memory accessible by the egress system; and
the egress system preparing the multicast packet for transmission by for each flow classification index of the plurality of flow classification indices, identifying corresponding transform control instructions based on the flow classification index, reading the single copy of the multicast packet from the memory, causing the multicast packet to be transformed in accordance with the identified transform control instructions and outputting the transformed multicast packet. - View Dependent Claims (2)
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3. A system comprising:
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a packet classifier; and
a packet transformer;
wherein,the packet classifier is configured to receive multicast packets and for each of the received multicast packets, the packet classifier configured to identify a plurality of flow classification indices and configured for each instance of multicasting to send a single copy of the multicast packets and the identified plurality of flow classification indices to the packet transformer;
the packet transformer is configured to transform each of the multicast packets by operating on the single copy in accordance with one or more transform control instructions identified based on the identified plurality of flow classification indices. - View Dependent Claims (4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. In a virtual routing system having a plurality of virtual routers (VRs) instantiated by a virtual routing engine (VRE), wherein the instantiation of each VR includes an associated routing context, a method of multicasting packets comprising:
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determining one of the plurality of VRs for a packet received from a service provider for multicasting;
switching a routing context of the VRE to a routing context associated with the VR determined for received packet; and
reading at least a portion of the packet from one of a plurality of multicast address spaces associated with the selected VR to multicast the packet. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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Specification