The invention discloses a distributed type medium
access control (MAC) address maintenance method inside of
Ethernet switch, the method comprises following steps: when a certain
line card receives a data packet from an switching port, according to the
MAC address learned from the data packet, the MAC forwarding
list of the
line card is updated according to the
MAC address learned from the data packet, and the learning information of the
MAC address is notified to the main
control card and other line cards; when the
line card receives the data packet from the interconnecting port, the learning of the MAC address can not performed; the line card performs aging process for the MAC address learned from the switching port in the oneself MAC forwarding
list, and notifies the aging information of the MAC address to the main
control card and other line cards, the aging process of each MAC forwarding
list can be performed according to the aging information of the MAC address. The invention also discloses a distributed
Ethernet switch capable of conveniently implementing the MAC address maintenance inside of the distributed
Ethernet switch, the communication between boards can be reduced, and the
processing logic can be simplified.