A concept of "Interface Class" is introduced. All logical interfaces that belong to an Interface Class are indistinguishable in hardware. Each Interface Class is associated with one or more packet forwarding rules, such as Access Control Lists (ACLs), Policy Routes, and Quality of Service (QoS). Each Interface Class is also assigned with a Class ID, which is a user-defined integer. When defined in terms of a Class ID, a logical interface (e.g., an L3 Interface) will inherit all the packet forwarding rules associated with the Class ID. In one embodiment, Class IDs and Interface IDs can be stored in the same hardware lookup table in association with data representative of their respective packet forwarding rules.