Technology for flushing and relearning MAC addresses in telecommunication networks

1. A method for performing a flushing process at a port of a network switch, wherein the flushing process comprises at least two operations being a flooding operation and an operation of relearning MAC addresses; the method comprises making said two operations independent of each other, starting the operation of relearning MAC addresses before termination of the flooding operation, the method further comprises starting an operation of forwarding packets to the relearned MAC addresses before termination of the flooding operation,

performing said flooding operation and said relearning operation respectively with reference to two artificially provided different instances of said port being flushed, thereby making said two operations independent and preventing flooding of the packets to the relearned MAC addresses while the flooding operation is in progress, and

wherein for performing the flushing process at said port of a network switch comprising a plurality of ports, the method comprises

assigning said two different instances to each port of said plurality, one instance being a main instance, while another being an additional instance,

in case the flushing process is required for a specific port, declaring a “flushing” status only for one of the instances of said specific port;

performing the flooding operation using the instance being in the “flushing” status; and

performing the operations of relearning and the operation of forwarding using the instance not being in the “flushing” status.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

performing the operation of relearning MAC addresses as follows:

if a packet having a Source MAC address arrives to a new port to which it was not previously assigned, relearning said MAC address using the new port's instance being not in the “flushing” status; and

if a packet having a known Source MAC address arrives to the same said specific port where it was registered before, relearning said known MAC address using the said specific port's instance being not in the “flushing” status; performing the operation of forwarding packets by using only the instances being not in the “flushing” status,

thereby separating and making independent said operation of flooding and said operation of relearning, thus accelerating the operation of relearning and the whole flushing process at said specific port.

3. A method for performing a flushing process at a port of a network switch, wherein the flushing process comprises at least two operations being a flooding operation and an operation of relearning MAC addresses; the method comprises making said two operations independent of each other, starting the operation of relearning MAC addresses before termination of the flooding operation, the method further comprises:

starting an operation of forwarding packets to the relearned MAC addresses before termination of the flooding operation

providing a status table of the ports of the switch,

providing, in the status table, a main entry for a specific port of the switch, bearing a main index of said port;

providing, in the status table, an additional entry for said specific port of the switch, said additional entry having an additional index of that same specific port; and

providing the following behavior of the main entry and the additional entry in case the flush process is required on said specific port of the switch:

one of said entries of the specific port acquires a “flush” status, while the other entry has a status alternative to said “flush” status;

using the entry having said alternative status, as a substitute of the “flush” status entry, for the MAC relearning operation at said specific port while said port is being flooded; and

in case another flush is required at the same port, mutually exchanging status of the two entries.

4. A packet switching device capable of performing the method according to claim 1 .