Abstract: Packets may be classified into flows using direct lookup tables. The classification includes receiving a packet including a packet field having a corresponding field value. A direct lookup table (“DLT”) is indexed into at a DLT offset matching the field value to determine whether one or more of classification rules for classifying the packet into one or more flows are indexed at the DLT offset matching the field value. The DLT includes at least a portion of the classification rules indexed at any of multiple DLT offsets within the DLT according to at least one bit matching mask. In some cases, the packet field may be segmented into packet sub-fields having corresponding sub-field values and multiple strided DLTs are indexed into at DLT offsets matching the corresponding sub-field values to determine the matching classification rules for each of the sub-field values.

Abstract: An ordered classification procedure includes receiving a packet including a plurality of packet fields having corresponding field values. At least some of the packet fields are parsed to extract at least some of the field values of the packet. The extracted field values are examined using the ordered classification procedure to classify the packet into a flow. An order of the field examinations scheduled within the ordered classification procedure to examine the field values is based at least in part on the field values themselves.