Blade router with NAT support

摘要

A blade router for increased interface scalability is provided. The blade router may address interface scalability by having each of the linecards manage its interfaces locally and may use the concept of virtual and local interfaces for intelligent forwarding. The blade router may appear as a single router from the customer perspective during configuration. For some embodiments, two virtual interfaces may be used, one for regular interface traffic and another for Network Address Translation (NAT)-enabled interface traffic.

主权项

1. A network routing system, comprising:
a chassis; a plurality of router linecards disposed in the chassis, each of the router linecards comprising a plurality of local interfaces and a forwarding engine configured to route received packets to one of the plurality of local interfaces on the respective router linecard; and first and second virtual interfaces for routing received packets between a first linecard of the plurality of router linecards and a second linecard of the plurality of router linecards, each of the router linecards maintaining a virtual forwarding information base (FIB) for routing received packets on one of the first and second virtual interfaces,
wherein both the first virtual interface and the second virtual interface route data on a shared physical communication link coupling the plurality of router linecards in the chassis, wherein routing on the first and second virtual interfaces is governed by an egress policy, andwherein the egress policy routes the received packets from the first linecard to the second linecard using the second virtual interface if the received packets were received at a Network Address Translation (NAT)-enabled local interface of the first linecard, and the egress policy routes the received packets from the first linecard to the second linecard using the first virtual interface if the received packets were received on a non-NAT-enabled local interface of the first linecard.