RESOLVING GOTO ACTIONS IN A TRAFFIC POLICY USING CASCADED TABLE LOOKUPS

Abstract

A traffic policy includes policy rules (terminal rules) that do not include GOTO actions in their action sets and policy rules (GOTO rules) that do include GOTO actions in their action sets. The traffic policy is grouped into segments based on the GOTO rules. The terminal rules in the traffic policy are programmed into a first hardware table as key-value pairs, where the value component of a terminal rule encodes link information that identifies the segment of the terminal rule. The GOTO rules are flattened to produce a set of flattened rules, which are then programmed into a second hardware table. The key component of each flattened rule encodes a mask based on the segment of a GOTO rule represented by the flattened rule.

CPC Classifications