A packet forwarding method and a network device are provided, and the method is applied to the network device. The network device includes a first virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) table and a second VRF table. The method includes: the network device receives a first packet. If the first packet carries tunnel attribute information, the network device forwards the first packet based on the first VRF table. The first VRF table includes one or more local routes, and next-hop outbound interfaces of the one or more local routes are all local outbound interfaces. The network device forwards the first packet based on the first VRF table, so that a packet from a tunnel may be forwarded to a local virtual machine for processing and may not be forwarded to another tunnel endpoint device, to avoid a routing loop during packet forwarding.

A path identity allocation method, system, and apparatus, a device, and a storage medium are provided, and belong to the field of communication technologies. According to the method, a forwarding node on a path receives a PCEP packet, so that when determining that path identification information of the path is unavailable, the forwarding node performs, based on indication information in the PCEP packet, an operation associated with the path identification information, for example, determines, based on indicated content, that the forwarding node reallocates a path identity, or requests the control node to reallocate a path identity.

A method and apparatus of a network element that processes network data using a transformed packet classification list in a network element is described. A network element receives a packet classification list and transforms a first set of the plurality of range sets corresponding to a first one of the two or more types of packet characteristics into a first set of range labels. In addition, the network element transforms a second set of the plurality of range sets corresponding to a second one of the two or more types of packet characteristics into a second set of range labels. The network element may create a set of combination labels. The network element further processes network data by performing a first lookup to derive a first combination packet label, performing a second lookup of at least the first combination packet label, and applying a rule resulting from the second lookup to the network data.

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are provided for generating a unique ID for a sensor in a network. Once the sensor is installed on a component of the network, the sensor can send attributes of the sensor to a control server of the network. The attributes of the sensor can include at least one unique identifier of the sensor or the host component of the sensor. The control server can determine a hash value using a one-way hash function and a secret key, send the hash value to the sensor, and designate the hash value as a sensor ID of the sensor. In response to receiving the sensor ID, the sensor can incorporate the sensor ID in subsequent communication messages. Other components of the network can verify the validity of the sensor using a hash of the at least one unique identifier of the sensor and the secret key.

A router configured as an autonomous system border router (ASBR) in a local autonomous system (AS), includes: (1) a control component for communicating and computing routing information, the control component running a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and peering with at least one BGP peer device in an outside autonomous system (AS) different from the local AS; and (2) a forwarding component for forwarding packets using forwarding information derived from the routing information computed by the control component, wherein the control component (i) receives reachability information for an external prefix corresponding to a device outside the local AS, and (ii) associates the external prefix, as a BGP next hop (B_NH), an abstract next hop (ANH) that identifies a set of BGP (eBGP) sessions that contains at least one eBGP session over which given external prefix has been learned, each of the at least one eBGP sessions being between the ASBR and a BGP peer device in an AS outside the AS, wherein the device located outside the local AS is reachable via the BGP peer device.

A stitching label sending method, receiving method, and a device, the sending method including receiving, by a controller, first label range information sent by an intermediate device, where the first label range information indicates a first label range in a plurality of label ranges of the intermediate device, selecting, by the controller, a label from the first label range as a stitching label, and sending, by the controller, to the intermediate device, the stitching label and a first label stack corresponding to the stitching label, where the first label stack indicates a first label switched path starting from the intermediate device.

Techniques for using global virtual network instance (VNI) labels in a multi-domain network to route network data with a multi-tenant network overlay are described herein. A routing device provisioned in a network domain of the multi-domain network may register with a service discovery system of the network domain for use of network configuration data to establish routes through the multi-domain network with network nodes. Each network domain of the multi-domain network may include an application programming interface (API) server for processing API requests to make changes to configurations of a network domain. A border gateway protocol (BGP) large community may be utilized to encode global VNI labels, network addresses, local next hop nodes, and/or additional network information and sent to routing devices provisioned in separate network domains. A service chain may be signaled by global VNI labels to route network traffic through various services prior to reaching a destination endpoint.

Techniques for configuring a logical network switch in label-switched networks are provided. In some embodiments, a first network device in a label-switched network is configured with a network address. A second network device in the label-switched network is configured with the same network address. The first network device is configured to use a set of labels for a set of virtual local area networks (VLANs). The second network device is configured to use the same set of labels for the same set of VLANs. The configured first and second network devices appear as a logical network device from the perspective of other network devices in the label-switched network.

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method. According to the method, a mark is added to a data packet. After user equipment is handed over from an original device to a target device, and before a user plane network element receives a handover notification, the user plane network element sends, through a path used before handover, a data packet that carries a first mark to the original device. The original device modifies the first mark in the data packet to a second mark, and then forwards, to the target device, a data packet whose mark is modified and that carries the second mark. After receiving the handover notification, the user plane network element sends, to the target device, a data packet that carries a fourth mark. The target device can distinguish between sources of the received data packets based on different marks in the received data packets.

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for multipath routing in data communication networks are provided.