COMMUNICATION APPARATUS AND COMMUNICATION METHOD

• US 20170264461A1
• Filed: 01/23/2017
• Published: 09/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/2016
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Alaxala Networks Corporation (Fortinet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Alaxala Networks Corporation (Fortinet Inc.)
• Inventors: SASAMOTO, Toshimasa, INO, Kensuke
• Application Number:
  US15/412,228
• Publication Number:
  US 20170264461A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/745 Address table lookup; Address filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0272 Virtual private networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers

Abstract

A network apparatus which is one of two network apparatuses using a tunneling protocol and which accommodates a user, wherein the network apparatus includes a function for uniquely determining an identifier in a header of the tunneling protocol in accordance with a setting made by a network operation administrator, and encapsulating and transmitting a packet with the determined identifier, and the other network apparatuses connected to the DPI apparatus 10 includes a function of carrying out decapsulation processing, converting the identifier in the tunneling protocol header into an identifier associated with the output destination interface, attaching a conversion result to a decapsulated packet as an internal control tag, and transferring the conversion result to hardware carrying out packet transfer processing.

Claims

1. A communication apparatus comprising:

a plurality of network interface units which are communication apparatuses for transmitting and receiving a packet on a network and which perform processing for transmitting and receiving the packet to and from the network and perform processing on the packet;

one or more packet transfer units 123 which perform, on the basis of a routing table 122, transfer processing on a packet that is output from the network interface unit; and

a control unit controlling each unit of the communication apparatus,

wherein when the control unit receives association information for associating a particular identifier of a tunneling protocol and an output destination interface in advance, the control unit sets the association information for associating the particular identifier of the tunneling protocol and the output destination interface in an information storage unit of the network interface unit and a routing table 122 of the packet transfer unit 123,

in a case where an identifier of a tunneling protocol possessed by a packet obtained by decapsulating the received packet is the particular identifier, the network interface unit attaches a tag for an internal control to a head portion of the packet and outputs the packet to the packet transfer unit 123, and

the packet transfer unit 123 reads, from the tag for the internal control, the association information for associating the particular identifier of the tunneling protocol and the output destination interface which is set in the routing table 122, and transfers the packet obtained by deleting the tag for the internal control to the output interface that has been set.

2. The communication apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the particular identifier is associated with the output interface of the communication apparatus on the basis of a policy set in advance in a packet satisfying a detection condition that is set in advance in the communication apparatus.

3. The communication apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the tunneling protocol is a VXLAN protocol, and the particular identifier is a VNI.

4. The communication apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the information about the output destination interface associated with the particular identifier is interface information associated with VRF.

5. A communication method for performing processing for transmitting and receiving a packet to and from a network and performing processing on the packet, and performing transfer processing on the basis of a routing table 122,

wherein when association information for associating a particular identifier of a tunneling protocol and an output destination interface is input, association information for associating the particular identifier of the tunneling protocol and the output destination interface is set in an information storage unit and the routing table 122 referred to when processing on the packet is performed,

in a case where an identifier of a tunneling protocol possessed by a packet obtained by decapsulating the received packet is the particular identifier, a tag for an internal control is attached to a head portion of the packet, and the association information for associating the particular identifier of the tunneling protocol and the output destination interface which is set in the routing table 122 is read from the tag for the internal control, and the packet obtained by deleting the tag for the internal control is transferred to the output interface that has been set.

6. The communication method according to claim 5, wherein the particular identifier is associated with the output interface of the communication apparatus on the basis of a policy set in advance in a packet satisfying a detection condition that is set in advance.

7. The communication method according to claim 5, wherein the tunneling protocol is a VXLAN protocol, and the particular identifier is a VNI.

8. The communication method according to claim 7, wherein the information about the output destination interface associated with the particular identifier is interface information associated with VRF.