Direct lookup tables and extensions thereto for packet classification

摘要

Packets may be classified into flows using direct lookup tables. The classification includes receiving a packet including a packet field having a corresponding field value. A direct lookup table ("DLT") is indexed into at a DLT offset matching the field value to determine whether one or more of classification rules for classifying the packet into one or more flows are indexed at the DLT offset matching the field value. The DLT includes at least a portion of the classification rules indexed at any of multiple DLT offsets within the DLT according to at least one bit matching mask. In some cases, the packet field may be segmented into packet sub-fields having corresponding sub-field values and multiple strided DLTs are indexed into at DLT offsets matching the corresponding sub-field values to determine the matching classification rules for each of the sub-field values.