Patent 8107382 was granted and assigned to Avaya on January, 2012 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A first node includes ports and a controller to receive a test packet at a first one of the ports. The first node determines whether the received test packet has a destination address that matches one or more predefined addresses associated with a second node. Presence of a loop in a communications network in which the first and second nodes are located is indicated in response to detecting receipt of the test packet containing the matching destination address.