Network switch

1. A network switch, comprising:

a failure detector configured to detect a port failure;

a forced transfer processor configured to, when a failure is detected in a first port at a transfer destination as a target in trying to transfer a received unicast frame and when a link aggregation group is set for a plurality of ports including the first port at the transfer destination, forcibly transfer the received unicast frame to a second port for which the same link aggregation group as that set for the first port at the transfer destination is set; and

an LAG (link aggregation group) transfer destination table set for each link aggregation group and defining a correspondence between a distributed ID and an identifier of each port at each transfer destination,

wherein, when the failure is detected in the first port at the transfer destination of the received unicast frame, the forced transfer processor searches the LAG transfer destination table related to the link aggregation group, which is set for the first port at the transfer destination, specifies an identifier of the second port where no failure occurs, and forcibly changes the identifier of the first port for the transfer destination of the received unicast frame to the specified identifier of the second port,

wherein the failure detector stores an occurrence or not of the port failure in a link table,

wherein the forced transfer processor specifies the identifier of the second port where no failure occurs, by repeating successively extracting identifiers of the plurality of ports, which are stored as transfer destinations in the LAG transfer destination table, and referring to the link table for each identifier, and

wherein said successively extracting identifiers of the plurality of ports includes:

when transferring the unicast frame to an LAG, the forced transfer processor selects one port as the transfer destination among the plurality of ports which include the LAG by referring to the LAG transfer destination table;

after the forced transfer processor selects said one port, the forced transfer processor refers to the link table and determines whether the selected one port includes a failure occurrence;

if the selected one port does not include the failure occurrence, the forced transfer processor transfers the unicast frame to the selected one port;

if the selected one port includes the failure occurrence, the forced transfer processor again refers to the LAG transfer destination table and selects another port among the plurality of ports which include the LAG except the selected one port;

if the selected one port includes the failure occurrence, after selecting said another port, the forced transfer processor refers to the link table and determines whether the selected another one port includes the failure occurrence; and

if the selected another one port does not include the failure occurrence, the forced transfer processor transfers the unicast frame to the selected another one port.

2. The network switch according to claim 1 , wherein the network switch comprises a chassis type switch including a plurality of line cards in a chassis, and

wherein the failure detector and the forced transfer processor are included in each of the plural line cards.

3. The network switch according to claim 2 , wherein the failure detectors in the plural line cards mutually and periodically transmit and receive a connectivity confirmation frame, including port failure information, among the line cards, thereby notifying the occurrence of the port failure to one another.

4. The network switch according to claim 3 , wherein, when the connectivity confirmation frame is not received from a certain line card for a predetermined time, the failure detector determines that failures have occurred in all ports of a relevant line card.