a hello message has been received cpu 112 reads the outgoing i o port s 102 and or neighboring switch interface s 120 from the neighbor list thereafter control passes to step 321 if no hello message has been received from the destination router s the packet is dropped for that router s and the control flow passes immediately to step 395 however in an alternative embodiment the packet is multicast to all routers within the vlan if no hello message has been received from the destination router s as such cpu 112 would identify all outgoing i o port s 102 and or neighboring switch interface s 120 that service each router within the vlan in this embodiment the control flow would then pass to step 321 at step 321 packet processor 104 receives the outgoing i o port s 102 and or neighboring switch interface s 120 for the content packet more specifically if a lookup match is found at step 312 forwarding cam 106 returns the outgoing port index corresponding to the lookup key i e destination mac address or explicit source lookup key subsequently outgoing port lut 108 is queried to identify the outgoing i o port s 102 and or neighboring switch interface s 120 corresponding to the.