Wireless interface sharing

• US 9,918,270 B2
• Filed: 04/17/2012
• Issued: 03/13/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SoCtronics Co.
• Original Assignee: Ineda Systems, Inc (Intel Corporation)
• Inventors: Kanigicherla, Balaji, Voleti, Siva Raghuram, Tandaboina, Krishna Mohan, Kopparapu, Suman, Bandi, Sarveshwar, Hali, Kapil
• Primary Examiner(s): Rutkowski, Jeffrey M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wood, Jonathan B
• Application Number:
  US14/112,401
• Publication Number:
  US 20140044014A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,156 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/586 of virtual routers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/00 Communication routing or communication path finding
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/246 Connectivity information discovery

Abstract

Described herein are methods and system for sharing a wireless interface (102) among various multiple host processors in a multi-processor computing system (100) to provide simultaneous access of a wireless network to the host processors. In one implementation the multi-host computing system (100), comprises a wireless interface (102) configured to connect to at least one of a plurality of wireless networks; and a wireless network access virtualization (WNAV) processor (108) communicatively coupled to the wireless interface (102), wherein the WNAV processor (108) is configured to multiplex data packets received from the plurality of hosts, transmit the multiplexed data packets to at least one of the plurality of wireless networks through the wireless interface (102), receive data packets from one of the plurality of wireless network through the wireless interface (102) and route the data packets to each of the plurality of hosts based on a media access control (MAC) address associated with each of the plurality of hosts.

Claims

1. A multi-host computing system to provide for simultaneous access of a wireless interface to a plurality of host processors, the multi-host computing system comprising:

the plurality of host processors each associated with a Media Access Control (MAC) address, each of the plurality of host processors comprises a pseudo interface driver;

the wireless interface, communicatively coupled to the plurality of host processors concurrently through respective pseudo interface drivers, wherein the wireless interface is configured to connect to at least one of a plurality of wireless networks by making at least one association with an access point of the at least one of the plurality of wireless networks, wherein the wireless interface is configured as at least one of;

a station bridge to project to the access point that the plurality of host processors are associated with the station bridge wherein the access point communicates with the wireless interface configured as the station bridge to enable the sharing of the wireless interface among the plurality of host processors; and

a Wireless Network Access Virtualization (WNAV) processor communicatively coupled to the wireless interface and the respective pseudo interface driver, to provide simultaneous access of the plurality of wireless networks to the plurality of host processors, the WNAV processor comprising;

an L2 switch, wherein each host processor is communicatively coupled to the L2 switch by an Inter Processor Communication (IPC) bus and the IPC bus provides lossless communication between the host processor and the WNAV, wherein each host processor is communicatively coupled to the L2 switch by a separate IPC bus, and wherein the L2 switch allows direct communication between any two host processors from amongst the plurality of host processors based on MAC address information of a host processor available in data packets and without connecting to the at least one of the plurality of wireless networks; and

a Wi-Fi virtualization manager communicatively coupled to the L2 switch, to virtualize the wireless interface such that the wireless interface concurrently communicates with the plurality of host processors, and wherein the WNAV processor is configured to;

multiplex data packets received from the plurality of host processors through each of the respective pseudo interface drivers;

transmit the multiplexed data packets to the access point of the at least one of the plurality of wireless networks through the wireless interface;

receive data packets from the access point of the at least one of the plurality of wireless network through the wireless interface;

parse the received data packets from at least one of the plurality of wireless networks by the L2 switch to determine a MAC address, wherein the MAC address is indicative of a host from amongst the plurality of hosts processors for which the received data packets are destined; and

route the received data packets to each of the plurality of host processors through the respective pseudo interface driver, based on the MAC address associated with the each of the plurality of host processors.

2. The multi-host computing system, as claimed in claim 1, wherein the wireless interface is configured to support a plurality of MAC addresses so as to exchange packets between the plurality of host processors and at least one of the plurality of wireless networks.

3. The multi-host computing system, as claimed in claim 1, wherein the WNAV processor further comprises the Wi-Fi virtualization manager configured to:

maintain configuration settings of each of the plurality of host processors with respect to the access point of the at least one of the plurality of wireless networks; and

determine a system configuration setting, based in part on the maintained configuration settings, to connect to the access point through the wireless interface.

4. The multi-host computing system, as claimed in claim 1, wherein the wireless interface is configured to operate in a promiscuous mode so as to exchange data packets corresponding to the plurality of host processors.

5. The multi-host computing system, as claimed in claim 4, wherein the L2 switch is further configured to drop data packets based on MAC addresses associated with the data packets, wherein the MAC addresses are not associated with the plurality of host processors and wherein the wireless interface is in the promiscuous mode.

6. The multi-host computing system, as claimed in claim 1, wherein the L2 switch is further configured to forward at least one of multi-cast messages and broadcast messages to each of the plurality of host processors, based in part on a message subscription setting of each of the plurality of host processors.

7. The multi-host computing system, as claimed in claim 1, wherein the wireless interface is configured as a dedicated wireless interface with respect to each of the plurality of host processors, so as to enable each of the plurality of host processors to control the wireless interface independently with respect to the other host processors of the plurality of host processors, through respective pseudo interface drivers.

8. The multi-host computing system, as claimed in claim 1, wherein WNAV processor is configured as a multi-root aware device with respect to the each of the plurality of host processors.

9. The multi-host computing system, as claimed in claim 1, wherein the WNAV processor is configured as at least one of a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCie) device, Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) device, a non PCie compliant device and a non-PCI compliant device with respect to at least one of the plurality of host processors.

10. The multi-host computing system, as claimed in claim 1, wherein the WNAV processor is further configured to:

receive data packets from a first host from amongst the plurality of host-processors;

parse the received data packets to determine a destination MAC address, wherein the destination MAC address is of a second host from amongst the plurality of host processors; and

forward the received data packets to the second host over an inter processor communication bus, based in part on the determined destination MAC address.

11. method for providing simultaneous access of a wireless interface to a plurality of host processors of a multi-host computing system, the method comprising:

configuring, by a Wireless Network Access Virtualization (WNAV) processor of the multi-host computing system, the wireless interface for the plurality of host processors, each of the plurality of host processors having pseudo interface drivers to assign a unique media access control (MAC) address to the wireless interface, and communicatively couple the plurality of host processors with the WNAV processor through an Inter Processor Communication (IPC) bus, wherein the IPC bus provides lossless communication between the host processor and the WNAV processor, wherein each host processor is communicatively coupled to the L2 switch by a separate IPC bus, and wherein the WNAV processor allows direct communication between any two host processors from amongst the plurality of host processors based on MAC address information of a host processor available in data packets and without connecting to the at least one of the plurality of wireless networks;

transmitting, by the WNAV processor, a plurality of association requests to an access point of a wireless network to connect the plurality of host processors with the wireless network, based on the unique MAC address assigned by each of the plurality of host processors, wherein the WNAV processor provides simultaneous access of the plurality of wireless networks to the plurality of host processors;

parsing, by the WNAV processor, received data packets from at least one of the plurality of wireless networks to determine the MAC address, wherein the MAC address is indicative of a host processor from amongst the plurality of host processors for which the received data packets are destined; and

routing, by the WNAV processor, received data packets to at least one of the plurality of host processors through respective pseudo interface drivers, based on the unique MAC address assigned by each of the plurality of host processors associated with the received data packets.

12. The method as claimed in claim 11, wherein the method further comprises sending a positive acknowledgement to the access point on receipt of a data packet addressed to at least one of the plurality of host processors.

13. The method as claimed in claim 11, wherein the method further comprises:

configuring the wireless interface to operate in a promiscuous mode so as to exchange packets corresponding to the plurality of host processors;

parsing the received data packets from at least one of the plurality of wireless networks to determine the MAC address, wherein the MAC address is indicative of a host from amongst the plurality of host processors for which the received data packets are destined;

dropping received packets from the wireless network, on determining the received packets not to be addressed to at least one of the plurality of host processors, based in part on the MAC address associated with the received data packets; and

forwarding the data packets to the destined host from amongst the plurality of host processors.

14. A method for providing simultaneous access of a wireless interface to a plurality of host processors of a multi-host computing system, the method comprising:

configuring, by a Wireless Network Access Virtualization (WNAV) processor of the multi-host computing system, the wireless interface for one of a host processor from amongst the plurality of host processors to assign a unique MAC address to the wireless interface, wherein each of the plurality of host processors includes pseudo interface drivers to communicate with the wireless interface and communicatively couple the plurality of host processors with the WNAV processor through an Inter Processor Communication (IPC) bus, wherein the IPC bus provides lossless communication between the host processor and the WNAV processor, wherein each host processor is communicatively coupled to the L2 switch by a separate IPC bus, and the WNAV processor allows direct communication between any two host processors from amongst the plurality of host processors based on MAC address information of a host processor available in data packets and without connecting to the at least one of the plurality of wireless networks, wherein the WNAV processor provides simultaneous access of the plurality of wireless networks to the plurality of host processors, and wherein the wireless interface is configured as a station bridge to project to the access point that the plurality of host processors are associated with the station bridge;

transmitting, by the WNAV processor, an association request to an access point of a wireless network with information about the presence of the plurality of host processors from the station bridge connecting each of the plurality of host processors with one of the plurality of the wireless networks through the unique MAC address, wherein the information indicates MAC addresses of each of the plurality of host processors associated with the wireless interface;

parsing, by the WNAV processor, the received data packets from at least one of the plurality of wireless networks to determine the MAC address, wherein the MAC address is indicative of a host from amongst the plurality of host processors for which the received data packets are destined; and

routing, by the WNAV processor, data packets received at the unique MAC address to at least one of the plurality of host processors through respective pseudo interface drivers, based in part on the MAC address of each of the plurality of host processors associated with the received data packets.

15. The method as claimed in claim 14, wherein the method further comprises sending a positive acknowledgement to the access point on receipt of a data packet addressed to at least one of the plurality of host processors.

16. The method as claimed in claim 14, wherein the method further comprises:

configuring, by the WNAV processor, the wireless interface to operate in a promiscuous mode so as to exchange packets corresponding to the plurality of host processors;

parsing, by the WNAV processor, the received data packets from at least one of the plurality of wireless networks to determine the MAC address, wherein the MAC address is indicative of the host from amongst the plurality of host processors for which the received data packets are destined;

dropping, by the WNAV processor, received packets from the wireless network, on determining the received packets not to be addressed to at least one of the plurality of host processors, based in part on the MAC address associated with the received data packets; and

forwarding, by the WNAV processor, the data packets to the destined host from amongst the plurality of host processors.