Cisco® Field Manual: Catalyst® Switch Configuration

8-2. Cisco Express Forwarding

• Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) handles all packet forwarding in hardware, for all packets in a flow.

• CEF is implemented on the Catalyst 2948G-L3, 4908G-L3, 4000 Supervisor III, and 3550 series switches. It is also implemented on the Catalyst 6000 as a cooperation between the PFC2 Layer 3 switching engine and the MSFC2 route processor module.

• A route processor runs routing protocols and populates the following tables:

  - The normal routing table— A table of routes and next-hop destinations as determined by the routing protocols, administrative distances, metrics, and so on.

  - The Forwarding Information Base (FIB)— Every known route is represented in the FIB as a hierarchical tree structure. Longest-match routes can then ...