Communication apparatus and methods
First Claim
1. An inter-network communication apparatus comprising:
- a plurality of ports P for connecting the apparatus to a plurality of network segments;
a port MP for connecting the apparatus to a network monitor; and
means M1 for transmitting packets of information to one or more of the ports P wherein each packet of information includes information I1 for determining one or more ports P to which the packet of information is to be transmitted, wherein the means M1 can transmit a packet of information;
(1) to one or more of the ports P determined based on the information I1 in the packet and, in addition, (2) to port MP, wherein;
the means M1 comprises a store for storing one or more entries each of which comprises a triple (SA, DA, XP) wherein;
SA is a source address;
DA is a destination address; and
XP identifies zero, one, or more than one of ports P and MP to which a packet having a source address SA and a destination address DA is to be transmitted; and
said apparatus further comprises means M for searching, when a packet of information is received, said store for an entry whose SA and DA correspond, respectively, to a source address and a destination address of the received packet, wherein, if such an entry is found, the means M determines destination ports for the received information from XP of the found entry.
7 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A multi-port packet-based bridge is described in which packet transmissions on particular ports or between ports may be monitored on another, monitoring port. Efficient operation is realized by using a multi-processor environment and data structures that allow a packet received on one port to be transmitted to multiple ports without being "copied" multiple times. By using a Supervisory Access Terminal, it is possible to specify various circumstances under which a packet will be sent to the monitoring port. These circumstances include monitoring of all packets incoming to a selected port (or ports), all packets forwarded to a selected port (or ports), and packets generated internally and sent to a selected port (or ports). In addition, all packets forwarded from one selected port to another selected port may be monitored. Port monitoring is supported by particular data structures that promote efficient dispatching of packets and by a Bridging Cache that retains the results of recent dispatch calculations. Similar techniques are applied to multi-port routers.
291 Citations
33 Claims
-
1. An inter-network communication apparatus comprising:
-
a plurality of ports P for connecting the apparatus to a plurality of network segments; a port MP for connecting the apparatus to a network monitor; and means M1 for transmitting packets of information to one or more of the ports P wherein each packet of information includes information I1 for determining one or more ports P to which the packet of information is to be transmitted, wherein the means M1 can transmit a packet of information;
(1) to one or more of the ports P determined based on the information I1 in the packet and, in addition, (2) to port MP, wherein;the means M1 comprises a store for storing one or more entries each of which comprises a triple (SA, DA, XP) wherein; SA is a source address; DA is a destination address; and XP identifies zero, one, or more than one of ports P and MP to which a packet having a source address SA and a destination address DA is to be transmitted; and said apparatus further comprises means M for searching, when a packet of information is received, said store for an entry whose SA and DA correspond, respectively, to a source address and a destination address of the received packet, wherein, if such an entry is found, the means M determines destination ports for the received information from XP of the found entry. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 23, 24, 25)
-
-
5. An apparatus for allowing a plurality of units to communicate with each other, said apparatus comprising:
-
one or more ports P for connection to said plurality of units; a port MP for connecting a monitoring system to said apparatus; and means for transmitting packets of information to said ports P and MP such that each packet of information includes information I1 for determining one or more ports to which the packet is to be transmitted, wherein said transmitting means can select a subset of packets of information and can transmit each packet of the selected subset to one or more ports determined based on the information I1 in the packet, and wherein said transmitting means can transmit each packet of the selected subset to said port MP whether or not the port MP is a port determined based on the information I1 in the packet, and wherein said transmitting means comprises means for applying one or more custom filtering rules to determine which information is to be transmitted to port MP. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 26, 27, 28)
-
-
13. An apparatus comprising:
-
a plurality of ports for connecting to said apparatus a plurality of network segments and one or more network monitors, wherein one or more of said plurality of ports can be designated as monitoring ports to be used for connecting to said apparatus one or more network monitors; and means for transferring packets of information among said ports according to a forwarding algorithm and for selecting one or more packets of information and transmitting according to said forwarding algorithm the selected packets of information to one or more of said monitoring ports, wherein each packet of information includes information I1 for determining one or more ports to which the packet of information is to be transmitted and said means is responsive to a command to transmit the selected packets to one or more of said monitoring ports whether or not the information I1 in any selected packet determines any monitoring port as a port to which the selected packet is to be transmitted, said means comprising; a store for specifying whether information incoming on a non-monitoring port is to be transmitted to one or more of said monitoring ports; and means for transmitting information in accordance with contents of said store. - View Dependent Claims (14, 16, 29)
-
-
15. An apparatus comprising:
-
a plurality of ports for connecting to said apparatus a plurality of network segments and one or more network monitors, wherein one or more of said plurality of ports can be designated as monitoring ports to be used for connecting to said apparatus one or more network monitors; and means for transferring packets of information among said ports according to a forwarding algorithm and for selecting one or more packets of information and transmitting according to said forwarding algorithm the selected packets of information to one or more of said monitoring ports, wherein each packet of information includes information I1 for determining one or more ports to which the packet of information is to be transmitted and said means is responsive to a command to transmit the selected packets to one or more of said monitoring ports whether or not the information I1 in any selected packet determines any monitoring port as a port to which the selected packet is to be transmitted, said means comprising; a store for specifying whether information forwarded to a non-monitoring port is to be transmitted to one or more of said monitoring ports; and means for transmitting information in accordance with contents of said store. - View Dependent Claims (32)
-
-
17. An apparatus comprising:
-
a plurality of ports for connecting to said apparatus a plurality of network segments and one or more network monitors, wherein one or more of said plurality of ports can be designated as monitoring ports to be used for connecting to said apparatus one or more network monitors; and means for transferring packets of information among said ports according to a forwarding algorithm and for selecting one or more packets of information and transmitting according to said forwarding algorithm the selected packets of information to one or more of said monitoring ports, wherein each packet of information includes information I1 for determining one or more ports to which the packet of information is to be transmitted and said means is responsive to a command to transmit the selected packets to one or more of said monitoring ports whether or not the information I1 in any selected packet determines any monitoring port as a port to which the selected packet is to be transmitted, said means comprising; a store for specifying whether information forwarded from one selected non-monitoring port to another selected non-monitoring port is to be transmitted to one or more of said monitoring ports; and means for transmitting information in accordance with contents of said store. - View Dependent Claims (33)
-
-
18. A method for monitoring one or more ports PP1 of a communication apparatus interconnecting a plurality of network segments, said method comprising the steps of:
-
connecting to one or more ports MP of said ports one or more monitoring systems; and selecting packets of information, each packet including information I1 for determining one or more of the ports PP1 to which the packet is to be transmitted, and transmitting by the apparatus selected packets of information to one or more ports MP whether or not the information I1 in any selected packet determines any port MP as a port to which the selected packet is to be transmitted, said method further comprising the steps of; storing packets of information in buffers; and providing for each port P2 of said ports a data structure for containing one or more pointers to one or more buffers that store packets to be transmitted on the port P2, wherein the step of selecting packets of information and transmitting the selected packets comprises the step of transmitting on each port P2 packets stored in buffers pointed to by pointers in the data structure of the port P2. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 30, 31)
-
Specification