Cisco Express Forwarding Overview

Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) is advanced, Layer 3 IP switching technology. CEF optimizes network
performance and scalability for networks with large and dynamic traffic patterns, such as the Internet,
on networks characterized by intensive Web-based applications, or interactive sessions.
Procedures for configuring CEF or distributed CEF (dCEF) are provided in the “Configuring Cisco
Express Forwarding” chapter later in this publication.
This chapter describes CEF. It contains the following sections:
• Benefits
• Restrictions
• CEF Components
• Supported Media
• CEF Operation Modes
• Additional Capabilities

Benefits
CEF offers the following benefits:
• Improved performance—CEF is less CPU-intensive than fast switching route caching. More CPU
processing power can be dedicated to Layer 3 services such as quality of service (QoS) and
encryption.
• Scalability—CEF offers full switching capacity at each line card when distributed CEF (dCEF)
mode is active.
• Resilience—CEF offers unprecedented level of switching consistency and stability in large dynamic
networks. In dynamic networks, fast switching cache entries are frequently invalidated due to
routing changes. These changes can cause traffic to be process switched using the routing table,
rather than fast switched using the route cache. Because the Forwarding Information Base (FIB)
lookup table contains all known routes that exist in the routing table, it eliminates route cache
maintenance and the fast switch/process switch forwarding scenario. CEF can switch traffic more
efficiently than typical demand caching schemes.
Although you can use CEF in any part of a network, it is designed for high-performance, highly resilient
Layer 3 IP backbone switching. For example, Figure 7 shows CEF being run on Cisco 12000 series
Gigabit Switch Routers (GSRs) at aggregation points at the core of a network where traffic levels are
dense and performance is critical.

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Restrictions

Figure 7 Cisco Express Forwarding

CEF CEF
CEF running
at the network
core
CEF CEF

Peripheral

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routers and
switches

In a typical high-capacity internet service provider environment, Cisco 12012 GSRs as aggregation
devices at the core of the network support links to Cisco 7500 series routers or other feeder devices. CEF
in these platforms at the network core provides the performance and scalability needed to respond to
continued growth and steadily increasing network traffic. CEF is a distributed switching mechanism that
scales linearly with the number of interface cards and bandwidth installed in the router.

Restrictions
• The Cisco 12000 series Gigabit Switch Routers operate only in distributedCEF mode.
• Distributed CEF switching cannot be configured on the same VIP card as distributed fast switchin.g
• Distributed CEF is not supported on Cisco 7200 series routers.
• If you enable CEF and then create an access list that uses the log keyword, the packets that match
the access list are not CEF switched. They are fast switched. Logging disables CEF.

CEF Components
Information conventionally stored in a route cache is stored in several data structures for CEF switching.
The data structures provide optimized lookup for efficient packet forwarding. The two main components
of CEF operation are the following:
• Forwarding Information Base
• Adjacency Tables

Forwarding Information Base

CEF uses a FIB to make IP destination prefix-based switching decisions. The FIB is conceptually similar
to a routing table or information base. It maintains a mirror image of the forwarding information
contained in the IP routing table. When routing or topology changes occur in the network, the IP routing
table is updated, and those changes are reflected in the FIB. The FIB maintains next-hop address
information based on the information in the IP routing table.

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CEF Components

Because there is a one-to-one correlation between FIB entries and routing table entries, the FIB contains
all known routes and eliminates the need for route cache maintenance that is associated with switching
paths such as fast switching and optimum switching.

Adjacency Tables
Nodes in the network are said to be adjacent if they can reach each other with a single hop across a link
layer. In addition to the FIB, CEF uses adjacency tables to prepend Layer 2 addressing information.
The adjacency table maintains Layer 2 next-hop addresses for all FIB entries.

Adjacency Discovery
The adjacency table is populated as adjacencies are discovered. Each time an adjacency entry is created
(such as through the ARP protocol), a link-layer header for that adjacent node is precomputed and stored
in the adjacency table. Once a route is determined, it points to a next hop and corresponding adjacency
entry. It is subsequently used for encapsulation during CEF switching of packets.

Adjacency Resolution
A route might have several paths to a destination prefix, such as when a router is configured for
simultaneous load balancing and redundancy. For each resolved path, a pointer is added for the
adjacency corresponding to the next-hop interface for that path. This mechanism is used for load
balancing across several paths.

Adjacency Types That Require Special Handling

In addition to adjacencies associated with next-hop interfaces (host-route adjacencies), other types of
adjacencies are used to expedite switching when certain exception conditions exist. When the prefix is
defined, prefixes requiring exception processing are cached with one of the special adjacencies listed in
Table 4.

Table 4 Adjacency Types for Exception Processing

This adjacency type... Receives this processing...

Null adjacency Packets destined for a Null0 interface are dropped. This can be used as an
effective form of access filtering.
Glean adjacency When a router is connected directly to several hosts, the FIB table on the
router maintains a prefix for the subnet rather than for the individual host
prefixes. The subnet prefix points to a glean adjacency. When packets
need to be forwarded to a specific host, the adjacency database is gleaned
for the specific prefix.
Punt adjacency Features that require special handling or features that are not yet
supported in conjunction with CEF switching paths are forwarded to the
next switching layer for handling. Features that are not supported are
forwarded to the next higher switching level.
Discard adjacency Packets are discarded.
Drop adjacency Packets are dropped, but the prefix is checked.

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Supported Media

Unresolved Adjacency
When a link-layer header is prepended to packets, FIB requires the prepend to point to an adjacency
corresponding to the next hop. If an adjacency was created by FIB and not discovered through a
mechanism, such as ARP, the Layer 2 addressing information is not known and the adjacency is
considered incomplete. Once the Layer 2 information is known, the packet is forwarded to the route
processor, and the adjacency is determined through ARP.

Supported Media
CEF currently supports ATM/AAL5snap, ATM/AAL5mux, ATM/AAL5nlpid, Frame Relay, Ethernet,
FDDI, PPP, HDLC, and tunnels.

CEF Operation Modes

CEF can be enabled in one of two modes:
• Central CEF Mode
• Distributed CEF Mode

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CEF Operation Modes

Central CEF Mode

When CEF mode is enabled, the CEF FIB and adjacency tables reside on the route processor, and the
route processor performs the express forwarding. You can use CEF mode when line cards are not
available for CEF switching or when you need to use features not compatible with distributed CEF
switching.
Figure 8 shows the relationship between the routing table, FIB, and adjacency table during CEF mode.
The Cisco Catalyst switches forward traffic from workgroup LANs to a Cisco 7500 series router on the
enterprise backbone running CEF. The route processor performs the express forwarding.

Figure 8 CEF Mode

Cisco 7500
series router Route Processor
running CEF

Routing FIB table Adjacency

table table

Interface Interface
Interface card
card card

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E1 E2 E1 E2 E1 E2

Cisco
Catalyst
switches

Workgroup LAN Workgroup LAN Workgroup LAN

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CEF Operation Modes

Distributed CEF Mode

When dCEF is enabled, line cards, such as VIP line cards or GSR line cards, maintain an identical copy
of the FIB and adjacency tables. The line cards perform the express forwarding between port adapters,
relieving the RSP of involvement in the switching operation.
dCEF uses an Inter Process Communication (IPC) mechanism to ensure synchronization of FIBs and
adjacency tables on the route processor and line cards.
Figure 9 shows the relationship between the route processor and line cards when dCEF mode is active.

Figure 9 dCEF Mode

Route Processor

Routing FIB table Adjacency

table table

IPC

Line card Line card Line card

FIB Adjacency FIB Adjacency FIB Adjacency

table table table

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Cisco 7200 Cisco 7200

and 7500 and 7500
series routers series router
GSR

In this Cisco 12000 series router, the line cards perform the switching. In other routers where you can
mix various types of cards in the same router, it is possible that not all of the cards you are using support
CEF. When a line card that does not support CEF receives a packet, the line card forwards the packet to
the next higher switching layer (the route processor) or forwards the packet to the next hop for
processing. This structure allows legacy interface processors to exist in the router with newer interface
processors.

Note The Cisco 12000 series Gigabit Switch Routers operate only dCEF mode; dCEF switching
cannot be configured on the same VIP card as distributed fast switching, and dCEF is not
supported on Cisco 7200 series routers.

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Additional Capabilities

Additional Capabilities
In addition to configuring CEF and dCEF, you can also configure the following features:
• Distributed CEF switching using access lists
• Distributed CEF switching of Frame Relay packets
• Distributed CEF switching during packet fragmentation
• Load balancing on a per destination-source host pair or per packet basis
• Network accounting to gather byte and packet statistics
• Distributed CEF switching across IP tunnels
For information on enabling these features, see the next chapter “Configuring Cisco Express
Forwarding.”

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