Patent attributes
The present application is directed towards distributing multicast routing packets in a cluster environment utilizing link aggregation. In a cluster environment, a plurality of devices may be connected to an upstream router or switch as a single “virtual” device having a plurality of connections as part of a link aggregation group, allowing the router to easily and efficiently distribute packets among the connections. Multicast routing packets may be sent via only a single connection of the link aggregation group, and accordingly, a recipient device may distribute the multicast routing packet to other devices. To distinguish between a newly received routing packet from the router and an internally distributed routing packet from a first device, the first device may insert a predetermined identifier into a MAC address of the routing packet.
