PACKET DESCRIPTOR TRACE INDICATORS

• US 20130250777A1
• Filed: 03/26/2012
• Published: 09/26/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Ziegler, Michael L.
• Granted Patent: US 9,237,082 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/248
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/106 using time related information in packets, e.g. by adding timestamps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/12 Network monitoring probes

Abstract

Techniques are provided to trace packet descriptors. A received packet may be identified. A packet descriptor associated with the received packet may be created. A trace indicator in the packet descriptor may be set. The presence of a packet descriptor with the trace indicator set may be logged by a detector.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a packet at a network device;

creating a packet descriptor based on the packet;

setting a trace indicator in the packet descriptor; and

logging the presence of the packet descriptor at a detector if the trace indicator is set.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving user specified criteria for the packet; and

creating the packet based on the user specified criteria.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving user specified criteria for the packet; and

comparing the received packet to the user specified criteria, wherein the trace indicator is set if the received packet matches the user specified criteria.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein logging the presence of the packet descriptor further includes logging a timestamp.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein logging the presence of the packet descriptor further includes incrementing a count.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

retrieving the logged presence from the detector; and

resetting the detector.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

including detectors at a plurality of locations, wherein the presence of the packet descriptor at each of the plurality of detectors identifies the path of the packet descriptor.

8. A device comprising:

a packet receiving module to receive a packet;

a packet descriptor creation module to create a packet descriptor based on the received packet and set a trace indicator within the packet descriptor; and

a detector module to log the presence of the packet descriptor when the trace indicator is set.

9. The device of claim 8 further comprising:

a packet creation module to create the packet based on user specified criteria and send the packet to the packet receiving module.

10. The device of claim 8 further comprising:

a packet identification module to receive user specified packet criteria and compare the user specified packet criteria to the received packet, wherein the packet descriptor creation module is further a module to set the trace indicator if the user specified packet criteria matches the received packet.

11. The device of claim 8 wherein the detector module is further a module to log a timestamp when the trace indicator is set.

12. The device of claim 8 wherein the detector module is further a module to increment a counter when the trace indicator is set.

13. A method comprising:

identifying a packet to trace;

setting a trace indicator in a packet descriptor associated with the packet; and

tracing a path of the packet descriptor through a plurality of detectors based on the trace indicator.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein identifying the packet to trace comprises:

generating the packet based on user specified criteria.

15. The method of claim 13 identifying the packet to trace comprises:

receiving user specified criteria to identify the packet;

comparing the user specified criteria to an incoming packet; and

setting the trace indicator if the user specified criteria matches the incoming packet.