Management of routing tables shared by logical switch partitions in a distributed network switch

摘要

Techniques are provided for managing a routing table in a distributed network switch. The distributed network switch is divided into logical switch partitions, or logical networks, that may share a routing table. The shared routing table is configured with counters and thresholds to control utilization of the routing table on a per-logical network basis. When counters exceed certain threshold, the routing table is modified to reduce routing entries within the routing table or pause insertion of new routing entries.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method for routing table management in a distributed network switch having a plurality of switch modules, wherein each switch module comprises: a plurality of bridge elements and a routing table, wherein the routing table in each switch module is shared among the plurality of bridge elements in the respective switch module, wherein the plurality of switch modules are logically partitioned into a plurality of logical networks, the method comprising:
receiving, by a first switch module, a first frame having a source address and a destination address, wherein the first frame is associated with a first logical network of the plurality of logical networks; upon determining that the routing table of the first switch module does not include a routing entry for the source address, modifying the routing table in the first switch module to include a first routing entry having routing information determined for the source address and the first logical network; updating a count of routing entries in the routing table that are associated with the first logical network; and upon determining that the count of routing entries associated with the first logical network exceeds a first threshold value associated with the first logical network, modifying the routing table to invalidate a second routing entry in the routing table based on the second routing entry being associated with the first logical network, wherein the modifying comprises: determining that the second routing entry is a non-static routing entry; determining that the second routing entry is not replicated from other portions of the routing table; and determining that the first switch module is an owner of the second routing entry, wherein the owner of a routing entry for a network address is characterized as a switch module having a forwarding database that learned the network address.