Methods for mapping virtual addresses to physical addresses in a network device and systems thereof

• US 8,447,884 B1
• Filed: 12/01/2009
• Issued: 05/21/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: F5 Networks, Inc. (F5 Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: F5 Networks, Inc. (F5 Incorporated)
• Inventors: Baumann, William R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zong, Ruolei
• Application Number:
  US12/628,441
• Time in Patent Office: 1,267 Days
• Field of Search: 709/245, 709212-219, 726/1, 726 11- 14
• US Class Current: 709/245
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/103 across network layers, e.g. resolution of network layer into physical layer addresses or address resolution protocol [ARP]

Abstract

A method, computer readable medium, and system for handling network packets at an application delivery controller includes receiving a packet from a communication network at a network interface controller within the application delivery controller and associating the received packet with a logical interface selected from a plurality of logical interfaces in at least one processing system using a mapping engine at the network interface controller, where each of the plurality of logical interfaces associated with a different physical address. At the network interface controller a physical address is assigned to the received packet corresponding to the selected logical interface to which data in the received packet is to be sent and a virtual address associated with the physical address in the network interface controller is retrieved. Data in the received packet and the retrieved virtual address is transmitted to the at least one processing system.

Claims

1. A method for mapping virtual addresses to physical addresses, the method comprising:

receiving a packet at a network interface controller within a network device;

identifying a logical interface configured to handle the received packet by analyzing at least a portion of the received packet, wherein the logical interface corresponds to one or more applications executing on at least one processing system of the network device;

assigning an available physical address to the received packet, wherein the available physical address is associated with the identified logical interface and identifies a buffer location in a buffer memory;

retrieving, from a memory of the network interface controller, a virtual address assigned to the physical address in accordance with the identified logical interface;

extracting data to be handled by the logical interface from the received packet;

storing the extracted data to the buffer location in the buffer memory identified by the assigned physical address; and

transmitting the retrieved virtual address to the at least one processing system, wherein the data stored in the buffer location can be accessed by the processing system using the corresponding retrieved virtual address.

2. The method as set forth in claim 1 further comprising:

receiving from the at least one processing system a physical address-virtual address pair associated with the logical interface associated with an application executing on the at least one processing system; and

storing the received physical address-virtual address pair.

3. The method as set forth in claim 1 further comprising:

extracting data in the received packet prior to the transmitting.

4. The method as set forth in claim 3 wherein the extracting comprises extracting overhead information from the received packet at the network interface controller and performing the associating based on the overhead information.

5. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein the transmitting the retrieved virtual address comprises communicating the virtual address to the at least one processing system.

6. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein the virtual address uniquely corresponds to the physical address.

7. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein the virtual address corresponds to distinct physical addresses at different points in time.

8. The method as set forth in claim 1 further comprising receiving at the network interface controller a table of physical address-virtual address pairs, wherein each one of physical address-virtual address pairs in the table corresponds to a corresponding one of a plurality of logical interfaces associated with applications executing simultaneously in the at least one processing system.

9. The method as set forth in claim 8 wherein the network interface controller communicates to the at least one processing system one or more physical address-virtual address pairs from the table that have not been associated with the logical interfaces.

10. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for mapping virtual addresses to physical addresses comprising machine executable code which when executed by at least one machine, causes the machine to perform steps comprising:

receiving a packet at a network interface controller;

identifying a logical interface configured to handle the received packet by analyzing at least a portion of the received packet, wherein the logical interface corresponds to one or more applications executing on at least one processing system;

assigning an available physical address to the received packet, wherein the available physical address is associated with the identified logical interface and identifies a buffer location in a buffer memory;

retrieving, from a memory of the network interface controller, a virtual address assigned to the physical address in accordance with the identified logical interface;

extracting data to be handled by the logical interface from the received packet;

storing the extracted data to the buffer location in the buffer memory identified by the assigned physical address; and

transmitting the retrieved virtual address to the at least one processing system, wherein the data stored in the buffer location can be accessed by the processing system using the corresponding retrieved virtual address.

11. The medium as set forth in claim 10 further having stored thereon instructions comprising machine executable code which when executed by the at least one machine, causes the machine to perform steps further comprising:

receiving from the at least one processing system a physical address-virtual address pair associated with the logical interface associated with an application executing on the at least one processing system; and

storing the received physical address-virtual address pair.

12. The medium as set forth in claim 10 further comprising:

extracting data in the received packet prior to the transmitting.

13. The medium as set forth in claim 12 wherein the extracting comprises extracting overhead information from the received packet at the network interface controller and performing the associating based on the overhead information.

14. The medium as set forth in claim 10 wherein the transmitting the retrieved virtual address comprises communicating the virtual address to the at least one processing system.

15. The medium as set forth in claim 10 wherein the virtual address uniquely corresponds to the physical address.

16. The medium as set forth in claim 10 wherein the virtual address corresponds to distinct physical addresses at different points in time.

17. The medium as set forth in claim 10 further comprising receiving at the network interface controller a table of physical address-virtual address pairs, wherein each one of physical address-virtual address pairs in the table corresponds to a corresponding one of a plurality of logical interfaces associated with applications executing simultaneously in the at least one processing system.

18. The medium as set forth in claim 17 wherein the network interface controller communicates to the at least one processing system one or more physical address-virtual address pairs from the table that have not been associated with the logical interfaces.

19. An network device comprising:

one or more processors, a network interface controller, and a memory associated with the network interface controller, at least one of the processors or the network interface controller configured to be capable of executing instructions to implement;

receiving a packet at the network interface controller;

identifying a logical interface configured to handle the received packet by analyzing at least a portion of the received packet, wherein the logical interface corresponds to one or more applications executing on at least one processing system;

assigning an available physical address to the received packet, wherein the available physical address is associated with the identified logical interface and identifies a buffer location in a buffer memory;

retrieving, from the memory associated with the network interface controller, a virtual address assigned to the physical address in accordance with the identified logical interface;

extracting data to be handled by the logical interface from the received packet;

storing the extracted data to the buffer location in the buffer memory identified by the assigned physical address; and

transmitting the retrieved virtual address to the at least one processing system, wherein the data stored in the buffer location can be accessed by the processing system using the corresponding retrieved virtual address.

20. The network device as set forth in claim 19 wherein the physical address and the virtual address are stored in the memory as a physical address-virtual address pair.

21. The network device as set forth in claim 20 wherein the physical address-virtual address pair corresponds to the logical interface associated with one or more applications residing on the at least one processing system.

22. The network device as set forth in claim 20 wherein the at least one processor or the network interface controller is further configured to be capable of executing instructions to implement mapping logic comprising:

identifying a location in the memory storing the physical address and the virtual address;

reading the virtual address from the memory;

transmitting the data from the received packet to the physical address, wherein the physical address corresponds to a location in the buffer memory; and

transmitting the virtual address to the at least one processing system.

23. The network device as set forth in claim 20 wherein the physical address corresponds to a location in the buffer memory.

24. The network device as set forth in claim 20 wherein the at least one processing system is configured to receive a table of physical address-virtual address pairs from and forward the received table to a direct memory access engine for storage.

25. The network device as set forth in claim 20 further comprising a packet processor configured to receive overhead information from the packet and communicate the overhead information to a direct memory access engine for network layer processing.