A METHOD OF OPERATING A SWITCH OR ACCESS NODE IN A NETWORK AND A PROCESSING APPARATUS CONFIGURED TO IMPLEMENT THE SAME

摘要

There is provided a method of operating a switch (10; 22) or an access node (20) in a network (2; 12), the switch or access node having a plurality of interfaces (64) through which data packets (30) can be received and forwarded, the network (2; 12) further comprising one or more gateway nodes (6; 16) and one or more user terminals (4; 14), each of the gateway nodes and the user terminals having a respective address, the method in the switch or access node comprising identifying the address for at least one of the gateway nodes (101); comparing a source address (32) specified in a data packet received from a user terminal at one of the interfaces of the switch or access node to the identified addresses for the one or more gateway nodes (103, 105); storing the source address specified in the data packet and the identity of the interface through which the data packet was received if the source address specified in the data packet does not match an address for any of the one or more gateway nodes (107); and discarding the data packet if the source address specified in the data packet matches an address for any of the one or more gateway nodes (111).