Abstract: A fault location mechanism is proposed based on lightpath status aware using cluster allocation to solve the issues of long fault location time and high service dependence. According to the constraints of network clustering, two-layer network model is established through the minimum dominating set theory. In addition, a new operation called matrix and is defined in the proposed mechanism. When a link failure occurs, the cluster head and sink node will achieve fast and accurate fault location via the operation of matrix and. The simulation shows that the fault location rate and fault location time are significantly improved with lower complexity and resource cost.