An intelligent network interface card (INIC) or communication processing device (CPD) works with a host computer for data communication. The device provides a fast-path that avoids protocol processing for most messages, greatly accelerating data transfer and offloading time-intensive processing tasks from the host CPU. The host retains a fallback processing capability for messages that do not fit fast-path criteria, with the device providing assistance such as validation even for slow-path messages, and messages being selected for either fast-path or slow-path processing. A context for a connection is defined that allows the device to move data, free of headers, directly to or from a destination or source in the host. The context can be passed back to the host for message processing by the host. The device contains specialized hardware circuits that are much faster at their specific tasks than a general purpose CPU. A preferred embodiment includes a trio of pipelined processors devoted to transmit, receive and utility processing, providing full duplex communication for four Fast Ethernet nodes.

TCP/IP offload network interface device

A system for protocol processing in a computer network has an intelligent network interface card (INIC) or communication processing device (CPD) associated with a host computer. The INIC provides a fast-path that avoids protocol processing for most large multi-packet messages, greatly accelerating data communication. The INIC also assists the host for those message packets that are chosen for processing by host software layers. A communication control block for a message is defined that allows DMA controllers of the INIC to move data, free of headers, directly to or from a destination or source in the host. The context is stored in the INIC as a communication control block (CCB) that can be passed back to the host for message processing by the host. The INIC contains specialized hardware circuits that are much faster at their specific tasks than a general purpose CPU. A preferred embodiment includes a trio of pipelined processors with separate processors devoted to transmit, receive and management processing, with full duplex communication for four fast Ethernet nodes.

Fast-path apparatus for receiving data corresponding to a TCP connection

A monitor for and a method of examining packets passing through a connection point on a computer network. Each packets conforms to one or more protocols. The method includes receiving a packet from a packet acquisition device and performing one or more parsing/extraction operations on the packet to create a parser record comprising a function of selected portions of the packet. The parsing/extraction operations depend on one or more of the protocols to which the packet conforms. The method further includes looking up a flow-entry database containing flow-entries for previously encountered conversational flows. The lookup uses the selected packet portions and determining if the packet is of an existing flow. If the packet is of an existing flow, the method classifies the packet as belonging to the found existing flow, and if the packet is of a new flow, the method stores a new flow-entry for the new flow in the flow-entry database, including identifying information for future packets to be identified with the new flow-entry. For the packet of an existing flow, the method updates the flow-entry of the existing flow. Such updating may include storing one or more statistical measures. Any stage of a flow, state is maintained, and the method performs any state processing for an identified state to further the process of identifying the flow. The method thus examines each and every packet passing through the connection point in real time until the application program associated with the conversational flow is determined.

Method and apparatus for monitoring traffic in a network

Methods and apparatuses for processing media data transmitted in a data communication medium. A digital processing system is provided with a time related sequence of media data provided to the digital processing system based on a set of data, wherein the set of data indicates a method to transmit the time related sequence of media data according to a transmission protocol. The set of data, itself, is a time related sequence of data associated with the time related sequence of media data. The time related sequence of media data may be presented and/or stored by the digital processing system.

Method and apparatus for media data transmission

A system and method for facilitating packet transformation of multi-protocol, multi-flow, streaming data. Packet portions subject to change are temporarily stored, and acted upon through processing of protocol-dependent instructions, resulting in a protocol-dependent modification of the temporarily stored packet information. Validity tags are associated with different segments of the temporarily-stored packet, where the state of each tag determines whether its corresponding packet segment will form part of the resulting modified packet. Only those packet segments identified as being part of the resulting modified packet are reassembled prior to dispatch of the packet.

System and method for providing transformation of multi-protocol packets in a data stream

A system and method are provided for managing a flow of packets through a network interface. A network flow is established for each datagram sent from a source entity to a destination entity. A flow key identifies the source and destination entities and is stored with information concerning validity of the flow, data sequencing within the flow datagram and how recently the flow was active. When a packet within a network flow is received, an operation code is generated for identifying whether the packet is suitable for a particular network interface function. One operation code may indicate that a packet contains data to be re-assembled with other flow data. Another operation code may indicate that a packet is unsuitable for data re-assembly. Another operation code may specify that the packet is a control packet, has no data, or was received out of order.

Method and apparatus for managing a network flow in a high performance network interface

A high performance network interface receives network traffic in the form of packets. The network interface parses one or more headers of a received packet in order to determine whether the packet has been formatted with a pre-selected protocol. If so, one or more efficient enhancements in the processing of a packet may be enabled for the packet. During parsing, header data that may be useful in the processing enhancements may be saved. A packet conforming to one or more of a set of pre-selected protocols may be more completely parsed than a packet not conforming to any of the pre-selected protocols. Instructions for parsing a packet to determine a protocol and to extract useful data are stored in a writeable random-access memory. The instructions may be replaced, modified or supplemented depending upon the composition of network traffic and the protocols selected for enhanced processing. In a parsing instruction executed by a micro-sequencer, a value is extracted from a header and compared to a test value that may be derived from a protocol specification. If the comparison succeeds parsing continues along a first branch; if the comparison succeeds it continues along a second branch. The value extracted from the header may be saved. An offset to a parsing position within the packet is maintained and updated as the packet is parsed. Values other than those extracted for comparison may also be identified and saved.

System for parsing a packet for conformity with a predetermined protocol using mask and comparison values included in a parsing instruction

A network interface receives a packet from a network and transfers it to a host computer system. A header portion of the packet is parsed by a parser module to determine if the packet conforms to a predetermined protocol. A flow database is maintained by a flow database manager to reflect the creation, termination and activity of communication flows. A re-assembly engine re-assembles data portions of multiple packets from a single communication flow. Header portions of re-assembled packets are stored in a header buffer. When multiple packets in one flow are transferred to the host, a packet batching module enables their header portions to be processed collectively rather than being interspersed with other packets. A packet queue stores packets awaiting transfer to the host and a control queue stores information concerning the waiting packets. If the packet queue becomes saturated with packets, a random packet may be discarded.

A high performance network interface

A system and method are provided for distributing or sharing the processing of network traffic (e.g., through a protocol stack on a host computer system) received at a multiprocessor computer system. A packet formatted according to one or more communication protocols is received from a network entity at a network interface circuit of a multiprocessor computer. A header portion of the packet is parsed to retrieve information stored in one or more protocol headers, such as source and destination identifiers or a virtual communication connection identifier. In one embodiment, a source identifier and a destination identifier are combined to form a flow key that is subjected to a hash function. The modulus of the result of the hash function over the number of processors in the multiprocessor computer is then calculated. In another embodiment a modulus operation is performed on the packet's virtual communication connection identifier. The result of the modulus operation identifies a processor to which the packet is submitted for processing.

Method and apparatus for distributing network traffic processing on a multiprocessor computer

A system and method are provided for transferring a packet received from a network to a host computer. A flow key is generated to identify a communication flow that comprises the packet. A code is generated to indicate how the packet should be transferred to host memory. Based on the code, a transfer engine stores the packet in one or more host buffers. If the packet conforms to a predetermined protocol, its data is added to a re-assembly buffer with data from other packets in the same flow and its header portion is stored in a header buffer. Otherwise, the packet is stored in the header buffer if it is smaller than a predetermined threshold or, if larger than the threshold, it is stored in another buffer. After a packet is stored, the transfer engine configures a descriptor with information concerning the packet and releases the descriptor to the host.

Denton Gentry

Papers

Method and apparatus for managing a network flow in a high performance network interface

System for parsing a packet for conformity with a predetermined protocol using mask and comparison values included in a parsing instruction

A high performance network interface

Method and apparatus for distributing network traffic processing on a multiprocessor computer

Method and apparatus for data re-assembly with a high performance network interface