A network device includes at least one source physical port coupled to a network, and a plurality of egress ports. A logical port assignment mechanism assigns source logical port information to a data packet received via one of the at least one physical port. The source logical port information is based on characteristics of the data packet, and the source logical port information corresponds to a logical entity that is different from any source physical port. A forwarding engine determines one or more egress ports for forwarding the data packet based on at least the assigned source logical port.