An interface permitting users (i) to create a group (also referred to as a
"source") containing configuration statements and (ii) to direct the
inheritance of that group's statements in the rest of the configuration
information (also referred to as a "target"). The same group can be
applied to different sections of the configuration information. Different
sections of one group's configuration statements can be inherited in
different places in the configuration information. Supporting such
configuration groups allows users to create smaller, more logically
constructed configuration files, thereby making it easier to configure
and maintain data forwarding device software. For example, users can
group together statements that are repeated in many places in the
configuration, such as when configuring interfaces, and thereby limit
updates to just the group. Users can also use wildcards in a
configuration group to allow configuration information of the
configuration group to be inherited by any object(s) in the target
configuration that matches a wildcard expression.