A method and an apparatus for controlling a network traffic path are provided. The method includes: receiving routing advertisement information from a first network to a second network; determining all routing nodes included in a path through which data pass when flowing from the second network to the first network according to the routing advertisement information; and configuring a next hop routing node for each determined routing node, where the next hop routing node is a node in all the routing nodes included in the path and is adjacent to the routing node for which the next hop routing node is configured, and the routing node for which the next hop routing node is configured does not include a routing node of the first network or a routing node of the second network.

A method may include (1) preparing, at a slave device, a request message that identifies an initial time-to-live value, (2) sending the request message to a plurality of candidate master devices, (3) receiving, at the slave device from one of the candidate master devices, a reply message that identifies a number of hops between the slave device and the one of the candidate master devices, (4) receiving, at the slave device from another one of the candidate master devices, another reply message that identifies another number of hops between the slave device and the another one of the candidate master devices, and then (5) synchronizing a clock of the slave device with a clock of the one of the candidate master devices due at least in part to the number of hops being less than the another number of hops. Various other apparatuses, systems, and methods are also disclosed.

A method performed by a first node. The first node operates in a communications network. The first node determines, based on a header of a packet, a first number of hops. The first number of hops are the hops the packet has to traverse in the communications network to reach a second node in the communications network. The header of the packet indicates a second number of hops between the second node and a third node in the communications network in a first path. The first node obtains a wired backhaul connection to a core network of the communications network from the third node. The first node then initiates routing the packet towards the second node based on the determined first number of hops.

A method performed by a function in a network node in a telecommunications network having at least one service communication proxy, SCP, deployed between a first network node and a second network node. The method includes receiving a request for routing information to signal a message from the first network node to the second network node. The method further includes responsive to the request from the first network node, providing a response to a network node that sent the request wherein the response identifies at least a portion of a routing path for the message based on a routing path configuration.

A self-organizing mesh network system is disclosed, comprising: at least one master node generating a timing reference signal; a plurality of regular nodes deriving time synchronization from the timing reference signal; and a wireless medium for communicating location and timestamp information among the plurality of regular nodes, The plurality of regular nodes may be configured to each use communicated location and timestamp information of nearby nodes to independently generate a location map of the nearby nodes. The plurality of regular nodes may be configured to accept an additional regular node. The plurality of regular nodes may be configured to allow a node of the plurality of regular nodes to exit the plurality of regular nodes. The plurality of regular nodes may each use communicated location and timestamp information of the plurality of regular nodes to independently generate a location map of each of the plurality of regular nodes.

A first node provides a time function to a second node. The first node generates a time function protocol data unit required for supporting the time function and generates a plurality of preamble protocol data units. The plurality of preamble protocol data units are sent before the time function protocol data unit. The preamble protocol data units carry routing information to cause the preamble protocol data units to follow a same network path as the time function protocol data unit. At an intermediate node the plurality of preamble protocol data units, the time function protocol data unit and other data traffic are stored in queues of different priority level. The intermediate node controls a time order of forwarding based on priority levels of the queues.

A programmable network technology-based multi-homed network routing and forwarding method includes a data packet performing address-to-port matching a forwarding flow table address matching method; classifying addresses to matched ports corresponding to a destination address group; selecting a link information table and a port selection function, an appropriate port and a corresponding destination address group; cropping destination address groups of the remaining ports using an address filtering function and previous hop information carried in data to further crop the remaining destination address groups and addresses in the destination address group, a single destination address can be determined using a single address selection method, taking the single destination address using a universal routing and forwarding method to forward a packet to the destination address; otherwise, packaging the destination address group, and using a single address selection method to determine the single destination address hop by hop until the destination address is reached.

A data processing method implemented by a controller includes after receiving a processing request from a specified node carrying identifiers of a plurality of computing nodes configured to execute a specified calculation task, determining a target switching device from switching devices that are configured to connect to the plurality of computing nodes, and separately sending, to the target switching device and the specified node, routing information used to indicate data forwarding paths between the plurality of computing nodes and the target switching device. The target switching device is configured to combine, based on the routing information, data reported by the plurality of computing nodes, and then send combined data to each computing node. The specified node is configured to send the routing information to each computing node, and each computing node may report data to the target switching device based on the routing information.

An improved traceroute mechanism for use in a label-switched path (LSP) is provided by (a) receiving, by a device in the LSP, an echo request message, wherein the echo request includes a label stack having a least one label, and wherein each of the at least one label has an associated time-to-live (TTL) value; (b) responsive to receiving the echo request, determining by the device, whether or not the device is a penultimate hop popping (PHP) device for the outermost label of the label stack; and (c) responsive to determining that the device is the PHP device for the outermost label of the label stack, (1) generating an echo reply message corresponding to the echo request message, wherein the echo reply message is encoded to indicate that the device is the PHP device for the outermost label of the label stack, and (2) sending the echo reply message back towards a source of the echo request message. Responsive to receiving the echo reply message by the ingress of the LSP defined by the outermost label of the label stack, the ingress may (a) determine whether or not the received echo reply message was sourced from the PHP of the LSP defined by the outermost label of the label stack, and (b) responsive to a determination that the received echo reply message was sourced from the PHP of the LSP defined by the outermost label of the label stack, (1) generate a next echo request in which the TTL value associated with the outermost label in the label stack is increased and in which the TTL value associated with a next to outermost label, if any, in the label stack is incremented, and (2) send the next echo request message on the LSP defined by the outermost label of the label stack.

In some embodiments, a method sets a threshold for utilization of a first table, wherein the utilization is based on layer 3 addresses and layer 2 addresses being stored in the first table. When a utilization of the first table does not meet the threshold, the method stores a layer 3 address in the first table. The first table uses a first type of lookup to determine a next hop address for the layer 3 addresses or the layer 2 addresses, and the first table also stores one or more layer 2 addresses. When the utilization of the first table meets the threshold, the method stores the layer 3 address in a second table where the second table uses a second type of lookup to determine the next hop address for layer 3 addresses.