To partition a distributed fabric system, at least one system port is allocated to each switching domain of multiple non-overlapping switching domains in a distributed fabric system. Multiple different look-up tables are produced, wherein each look-up table corresponds to a different switching domain of the multiple non-overlapping switching domains in the distributed fabric system. Each system port is associated with the look-up table of the multiple look-up tables that corresponds to the switching domain to which that system port is allocated. The look-up table associated with each system port has at least one table entry for each other system port allocated to the same switching domain as that system port.