SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR HIERARCHICAL ACCESS CONTROL IN A NETWORK ENVIRONMENT

Access control systems and methods herein successfully overcome ACL group width limitations of existing designs by splitting an ACL group across different units, e.g., to create two ACL groups that each has a relatively smaller width. In embodiments, availability of ACL space is increased by hierarchically splitting an ACL table to fit into different two coupled devices and modifying certain fields carrying metadata in packets that are exchanged between the devices, such that one chipset may carry information about the lookup of another. In embodiments, an ACL group for a port extender is created by selectively creating a sub-group with qualifiers that fit within an available group width, and moving the remaining qualifiers to a controlling bridge to achieve the desired functionality.