CONFIGURING AND PERFORMING CHARACTER PATTERN RECOGNITION IN A DATA PLANE CIRCUIT
First Claim
1. A method of detecting a set of one or more character patterns stored in data messages passing through a network, the method comprising:
- generating a state machine comprising (i) a plurality of states comprising partial-pattern states and at least one full-pattern state and (ii) a plurality of transitions between the states, each transition associated with a match of a set of characters in a data message and at least a portion of at least one pattern; and
providing configuration data to configure a data plane circuit of a forwarding element to implement the state machine, in order to search data messages to identify one or more character patterns in the data messages.
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Abstract
Some embodiments of the invention provide a data plane circuit for a network forwarding element that searches for one or more patterns of characters stored in data messages received by the data plane circuit. In some embodiments, the data plane circuit analyzes the data messages as it processes the data messages to forward the data messages to their destinations in a network. Because the data messages are already flowing through the network, it is optimal to search the data messages for the character patterns as the data messages pass through the network, instead of performing these operations on a separate set of servers that typically perform these searches at slower rates. In other embodiments, the data plane circuit does not perform its character pattern searches in conjunction with its forwarding operations, as it receives the data messages from a set of servers just for the purpose of performing its character pattern searches, in order to offload some or all of these searches from the server set.
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20 Claims
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1. A method of detecting a set of one or more character patterns stored in data messages passing through a network, the method comprising:
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generating a state machine comprising (i) a plurality of states comprising partial-pattern states and at least one full-pattern state and (ii) a plurality of transitions between the states, each transition associated with a match of a set of characters in a data message and at least a portion of at least one pattern; and providing configuration data to configure a data plane circuit of a forwarding element to implement the state machine, in order to search data messages to identify one or more character patterns in the data messages. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program for detecting a set of one or more character patterns stored in data messages passing through a network, the program for execution by at least one processing unit, the program comprising sets of instructions for:
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generating a state machine comprising (i) a plurality of states comprising partial-pattern states and at least one full-pattern state and (ii) a plurality of transitions between the states, each transition associated with a match of a set of characters in a data message and at least a portion of at least one pattern; and providing configuration data to configure a data plane circuit of a forwarding element to implement the state machine, in order to search data messages to identify one or more character patterns in the data messages. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification