1. A networking device, comprising: a physical network interface; a packet processor that processes a live stream of network packets received via the physical network interface according to a forwarding table stored at the packet processor; and a controller, configured to: detect an event to update the forwarding table; in response to the detection of the event: identify a plurality of entries in the forwarding table to move in the forwarding table as a result of applying the update to the forwarding table; direct write operations to store copies of the plurality of entries in respective ones of a plurality of reserved entries previously allocated for updates to the forwarding table; modify a pointer to the forwarding table to point to the respective reserved entries for processing the live stream of network packets instead of the plurality of entries; update the forwarding table, wherein to update the forwarding table, the controller is configured to direct write operations to store copies of the reserved entries in other entries in the forwarding table; and modify the pointer to the forwarding table to point to the other entries in the forwarding table for processing the live stream of network packets instead of the respective reserved entries.