Embodiments of the present invention provide a packet processing method, including: receiving, by a first node, a first packet, where the first packet carries a first bit string, the first bit string includes M bit sets, each bit set corresponds to one node group, a value of the bit set is used to indicate whether one or more target nodes of the first packet include the corresponding node group; and determining, by the first node based on the first bit string and a second bit string, whether to send the first packet to a second node, where the second bit string includes N bit sets, each bit set corresponds to one node group, a value of the bit set is used to indicate whether a node belonging to the corresponding node group exists in one or more related nodes of the first node.