Avoiding unknown unicast floods resulting from MAC address table overflows

摘要

In one embodiment, a system includes a processor adapted for running a switch controller application, logic configured for detecting a switch in a network, logic configured for determining that the switch is capable of communicating via the switch controller application, and logic configured for overwriting a default rule for handling unknown unicast packets in the switch such that the switch sends any unknown unicast packet received by the switch to the system instead of flooding when an unknown unicast packet is received. In another embodiment, a method includes detecting a switch in a network, determining that the switch is capable of communicating via a switch controller application, and overwriting a default rule for handling unknown unicast packets in the switch such that the switch sends any unknown unicast packet received by the switch to the switch controller instead of flooding when an unknown unicast packet is received.

主权项

1. A system, comprising:
a processor, implemented in hardware, configured to run a set of instructions of a switch controller application and execute logic, the logic being configured to: detect a switch in a network; determine that the switch is capable of communicating via the switch controller application; overwrite a default rule for handling unknown unicast packets in the switch such that the switch sends any unknown unicast packet received by the switch to the system; determine that expiration of a synchronization timer has occurred; determine that a local media access control (MAC) address table located on the switch is not full, in response to expiration of the synchronization timer; and synchronize an extended MAC address table accessible to the system with the local MAC address table located on the switch, in response to determining that the local MAC table is not full, wherein the logic configured to synchronize the extended MAC address table with the local MAC address table comprises logic configured to import entries from the extended MAC address table into the local MAC address table until the local MAC address table is full, and wherein the logic configured to import the entries comprises logic configured to import entries determined to be more often used before entries determined to be less often used.