CPC H04L 45/54 (2013.01) [H04L 43/106 (2013.01); H04L 45/38 (2013.01); H04L 47/28 (2013.01); H04L 49/3063 (2013.01); H04L 69/22 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |
1. A network appliance comprising:
a memory configured to store a flow table that includes a plurality of flow table entries for a plurality of network traffic flows that include a plurality of packets;
a packet processing circuit and a pipeline circuit that each include a plurality of match-action stages;
a match-action pipeline that includes the match-action stages of the packet processing circuit and that is configured to read the flow table in the memory; and
an extended packet processing pipeline that includes the match-action stages of the pipeline circuit and that is configured to read the flow table in the memory,
wherein
the match-action stages of the match-action pipeline process the packets based on the flow table entries in the flow table in the memory, and
the match-action stages of the extended packet processing pipeline search the flow table in the memory to determine that one of the flow table entries is for a network traffic flow that is expired or terminated.
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