The embodiment of the present application discloses a
message forwarding method, which is applied to the BIERv6
multicast network. Specifically, when the first network device forwards the first message, if the first path fails, the first network device obtains a first segment
list indicating the second path, and the second path is a
backup path for the first path. Among them, the first message includes a first target address, and the first target address is used to indicate the second network device, and the first network device is a bit forward
router (BFR), and the second network device is the next-hop BFR of the first network device on the first path. After the first network device obtains the first segment
list, it can update the first message to obtain a second message including the first segment
list, and forward the second message to the second network device via the second path. It can be seen that using this method, when an intermediate link in the
multicast network fails, it can switch to a link without a fault to forward
multicast messages, thereby avoiding long-term
packet loss of multicast messages.