US Patent 9444744 Line-rate selective load balancing of permitted network traffic

In one embodiment, an indication of a plurality of network nodes, load balancing criteria, and one or more access control list (ACL) entries are received. A plurality of forwarding entries are created, a forwarding entry of the plurality of forwarding entries based upon an ACL entry and the load balancing criteria and corresponding to a network node of the plurality of network nodes. A network element applies the plurality of forwarding entries to network traffic to selectively load balance the network traffic, wherein network traffic meeting the load balancing criteria and permitted by the one or more ACL entries is load balanced among the plurality of network nodes.