Embodiments of the present invention relate to the field of information technologies and disclose a link determining method, apparatus, and system for an optical packet switching system, which can reduce optical packet switching costs. The method includes: first, a control manager generates reference optical label information and an enabling signal, and sends the reference optical label information and the enabling signal to a link determining device; then, when the enabling signal is active, the link determining device determines, according to parsed-out actual optical label information and the received reference optical label information, whether an alarm signal is generated, and if it is determined that the alarm signal is generated, sends the alarm signal to the control manager; and finally, the control manager further determines, according to the received alarm signal, whether a link corresponding to the alarm signal is abnormal. The embodiments of the present invention are applicable to a case in which optical switching is applied to a network such as a data center.