Firewall including local bus
First Claim
1. A gateway for screening packets received from a network, comprising:
- a firewall engine;
a memory coupled to the firewall engine for storing packets to be screened by the firewall engine;
a primary memory bus coupling the firewall engine and the memory for providing a path for retrieval of packets from the memory; and
a local memory bus coupling the firewall engine and the memory, the local memory bus providing an alternative parallel path for retrieval of packets from the memory.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
A gateway for screening packets transferred over a network. The gateway includes a plurality of network interfaces, a memory and a memory controller. Each network interface receives and forwards messages from a network through the gateway. The memory temporarily stores packets received from a network. The memory controller couples each of the network interfaces and is configured to coordinate the transfer of received packets to and from the memory using a memory bus. The gateway includes a firewall engine coupled to the memory bus. The firewall engine is operable to retrieve packets from the memory and screen each packet prior to forwarding a given packet through the gateway and out an appropriate network interface. A local bus is coupled between the firewall engine and the memory providing a second path for retrieving packets from memory when the memory bus is busy.
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Citations
14 Claims
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1. A gateway for screening packets received from a network, comprising:
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a firewall engine;
a memory coupled to the firewall engine for storing packets to be screened by the firewall engine;
a primary memory bus coupling the firewall engine and the memory for providing a path for retrieval of packets from the memory; and
a local memory bus coupling the firewall engine and the memory, the local memory bus providing an alternative parallel path for retrieval of packets from the memory. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A method for screening packets transferred over a network, comprising:
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providing a firewall engine coupled directly to a first memory bus and a parallel second memory bus; and
transferring packets between the firewall engine and a memory using one of the first memory bus and the second memory bus. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7, 8)
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9. An improved gateway for screening packets transferred over a network, the gateway including a plurality of network interfaces, each receiving and forwarding messages from a network through the gateway, a memory for temporarily storing packets received from a network, a memory controller coupled to each of the network interfaces and configured to coordinate the transfer of received packets to and from the memory, a memory bus for transferring the received packets to and from the memory, the memory bus providing a first path for retrieving packets from the memory, a firewall engine coupled to the memory bus, the firewall engine operable to retrieve packets from the memory and screen each packet prior to forwarding a given packet through the gateway and out an appropriate network interface, wherein the improvement comprises:
a local bus coupled between the firewall engine and the memory providing a parallel second path for the firewall engine to retrieve packets from the memory. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
Specification