Fast lookup and update of current hop limit
First Claim
1. A method for transmitting packets from a communications device, the method comprising:
- maintaining a search tree to locate a node that corresponds to a particular transmission control protocol (TCP) connection, the search tree comprising a plurality of nodes, each node pointing to a data structure of a corresponding TCP connection, said node identified by an index derived from a set of identifying information of the corresponding TCP connection;
receiving an updated hop limit value;
updating a copy of a hop limit value that is cached in the data structure pointed to by the located node with the updated hop limit value, the hop limit value being a parameter associated with the TCP connection; and
transmitting a data packet for the particular TCP connection by retrieving said data structure for the particular connection and inserting the updated copy of the hop limit value obtained from the data structure into the data packet.
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Accused Products
Abstract
In order to facilitate efficient and scalable lookup of current hop limits of transmitted packets, a communications device embeds hop limit values along with other connection parameters in a connection data structure. To transmit a packet for a particular connection, the communications device retrieves the data structure for the particular connection and applies the hop limit value embedded in the data structure to the packet for transmission. To keep track of the hop limits being embedded in different data structures of different connections, the communications device use a binary search in which each node of the search tree correspond to a different connection. The communications device maintains one such search tree per communications interface.
69 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method for transmitting packets from a communications device, the method comprising:
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maintaining a search tree to locate a node that corresponds to a particular transmission control protocol (TCP) connection, the search tree comprising a plurality of nodes, each node pointing to a data structure of a corresponding TCP connection, said node identified by an index derived from a set of identifying information of the corresponding TCP connection; receiving an updated hop limit value; updating a copy of a hop limit value that is cached in the data structure pointed to by the located node with the updated hop limit value, the hop limit value being a parameter associated with the TCP connection; and transmitting a data packet for the particular TCP connection by retrieving said data structure for the particular connection and inserting the updated copy of the hop limit value obtained from the data structure into the data packet. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A communications device comprising:
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a set of processors; a transmitter for assembling packets for transmission for a transmission control protocol (TCP) connection, the assembling of a packet for the TCP connection comprising retrieving a data structure for the TCP connection, said data structure identified by an index derived from a set of identifying information of the TCP connection, each data structure for the TCP connection embedding a copy of a current hop limit value; receiving an updated hop limit value a hop limit update module controller for; receiving an updated hop limit value; and updating the copy of the current hop limit value embedded in the data structure of the TCP connection with the updated hot limit value, the current hop limit value being a parameter associated with the TCP connection. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A method for transmitting packets from a communications device, the method comprising:
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transmitting a packet for a TCP connection associated with a corresponding connection data structure, said connection data structure identified by an index derived from a set of identifying information of the TCP connection, said connection data structure comprising a copy of a hop limit value of the communications interface, the hop limit value being a parameter associated with the TCP connection, the transmitting of the packet for the TCP connection comprising retrieving the connection data structure; receiving an updated hop limit value for the communications interface; and updating the copy of the hot limit value in the connection data structure of the TCP connection to the received updated hop limit value. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification