Packet transfer apparatus and packet relay method

It is provided a packet transfer apparatus comprising: a packet reception part; a packet transmission part; a packet generation part for generating an own-apparatus-originated packet serving as a packet for instructing a predetermined operation and outputting the own-apparatus-originated packet; a packet search part for determining a content of flow control and searching for an output circuit; a search memory for storing the content of the flow control and information for identifying the output circuit outputting the packet; and a packet transfer processing part. The packet reception part determines whether the received packet is the own-apparatus-originated packet; and outputs a self-origination flag indicating a result of the determining and header information of the received packet to the packet search part. The packet search part determines the content of the flow control for the received packet by referring to the search memory based on the self-origination flag and the header information.