Systems and methods for processing packets

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016301781-A1
Application number	US-201615188705-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 21, 2016
Priority date	Jan 17, 2014
Publication date	Oct 13, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A network switch apparatus, includes: a network port configured to receive a packet; instrument ports configured to communicate with respective network monitoring instruments; a packet duplication module configured to copy the packet to provide multiple packets that are identical to each other: a tagging module configured to tag the multiple packets with different respective identifiers to obtain tagged packets; and a processing unit coupled to the instrument ports; wherein the processing unit is configured to determine whether a first one of the tagged packets satisfies a first criterion, whether a second one of the tagged packets satisfies a second criterion, process the first one of the tagged packets in a first manner if the first one of the tagged packets satisfies the first criterion, and process the second one of the tagged packets in a second manner if the second one of the tagged packets satisfies the second criterion.

First claim

1 . A method comprising:
storing a plurality of criteria that establish a mapping between a packet and a plurality of corresponding network monitoring instruments; receiving the packet on a network port; based on the plurality of criteria, copying the packet to produce a plurality of packets; and tagging each packet in the plurality of packets with a unique identifier to produce a plurality of unique tagged packets, wherein each unique identifier is used to associate the corresponding unique tagged packet with a network monitoring instrument in the plurality of corresponding network monitoring instruments.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
establishing a correspondence between the unique identifier associated with the unique tagged packet in the plurality of unique tagged packets and a criterion in the plurality of criteria; and sending the unique tagged packet to the network monitoring instrument associated with the criterion.

3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
establishing a correspondence between the unique identifier associated with the unique tagged packet in the plurality of unique tagged packets and the network monitoring instrument in the plurality of corresponding network monitoring instruments such that each network monitoring instrument in the plurality of corresponding network monitoring instruments corresponds to at least one unique tagged packet; and sending the unique tagged packet to the network monitoring instrument.

4 . The method of claim 1 , said copying the packet comprising:
removing a portion of the packet to produce a compact packet, wherein the removed portion comprises at least one of a header associated with the packet or a body associated with a packet; and based on the plurality of criteria, copying the compact packet to produce the plurality of packets.

5 . The method of claim 1 , said copying the packet comprising:
identifying the network port that received the packet; identifying a particular criterion in the plurality of criteria, based on identification of the network port that received the packet and an express association between the particular criterion and the network port that received the packet; determining a number of copies of the packet to make, based on the particular criterion; and copying the packet according to the determined number of copies to provide the plurality of packets.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the unique identifier comprises a VLAN tag.

7 . The method of claim 1 , said tagging each packet in the plurality of packets comprising:
tagging each packet in the plurality of packets with an ordinal number to obtain the plurality of unique tagged packets; and matching each packet in the plurality of packets to a criterion in the plurality of criteria to obtain a matched criterion such that the ordinal number associated with the packet corresponds to an ordinal number associated with the matched criterion.

8 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
when the matched criterion is not found, dropping the packet.

9 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising storing the plurality of criteria in TCAM.

10 . A method comprising:
storing a plurality of criteria that establish a mapping between a packet and a plurality of actions, wherein the plurality of actions comprises at least one of forwarding the packet to a network port, forwarding the packet to a group of network ports, dropping the packet, assigning the packet to a multicast group, or modifying a field associated with the packet; receiving the packet on the network port; based on the plurality of criteria, copying the packet to produce a plurality of packets; and tagging each packet in the plurality of packets with a unique identifier, to produce a plurality of unique tagged packets, wherein each unique identifier is used to associate the corresponding unique tagged packet with an action in the plurality of actions.

11 . The method of claim 10 , said tagging each packet in the plurality of packets comprising:
tagging each packet in the plurality of packets with an ordinal number to obtain the plurality of unique tagged packets; matching each packet in the plurality of packets to a criterion in the plurality of criteria to obtain a matched criterion such that the ordinal number associated with the packet corresponds to an ordinal number associated with the matched criterion; and performing an action associated with the matched criterion.

12 . A system comprising:
a network port configured to receive a packet; a memory to store a plurality of criteria that establish a mapping between the packet and a plurality of corresponding network monitoring instruments; packet duplication circuitry to copy the packet to produce a plurality of packets based on the plurality of criteria; and tagging circuitry to tag each packet in the plurality of packets with a unique identifier, to produce a plurality of unique tagged packets, wherein each unique identifier is used to associate the corresponding unique tagged packet with a network monitoring instrument in the plurality of corresponding network monitoring instruments.

13 . The system of claim 12 , further comprising a processing unit configured to:
establish a correspondence between the unique identifier associated with the unique tagged packet in the plurality of unique tagged packets and a criterion in the plurality of criteria; and send the unique tagged packet to the network monitoring instrument associated with the criterion.

14 . The system of claim 12 , further comprising a processing unit configured to:
establish a correspondence between the unique identifier associated with the unique tagged packet in the plurality of unique tagged packets and the network monitoring instrument in the plurality of corresponding network monitoring instruments such that each network monitoring instrument in the plurality of corresponding network monitoring instruments corresponds to at least one unique tagged packet; and send the unique tagged packet to the network monitoring instrument.

15 . The system of claim 12 , wherein the unique identifier associates one packet in the plurality of unique tagged packets with one network monitoring instrument in the plurality of corresponding network monitoring instruments.

16 . The system of claim 12 , the packet duplication circuitry to:
identify the network port that received the packet; identify a particular criterion in the plurality of criteria, based on identification of the network port that received the packet and an express association between the particular criterion and the network port that received the packet; determine a number of copies of the packet to make, based on the particular criterion; and copy the packet according to the determined number of copies to provide the plurality of packets.

17 . The system of claim 12 , wherein the packet duplication circuitry comprises a multicast mechanism.

18 . The system of claim 12 , the tagging circuitry to:
tag each packet in the plurality of packets with an ordinal number to obtain the plurality of unique tagged packets; and match each packet in the plurality of packets to a criterion in the plurality of criteria to obtain a matched criterion such that the ordinal number associated with the packet corresponds to an ordinal number associated with the matched criterion.

19 . The system of claim 18 , further comprising a processing unit configured to remove the ordinal number from each packet in

Assignees

• Gigamon Inc

Inventors

• Merchant Shehzad
• Ng Qi Ming
• Wang Ning

Classifications

• H04L45/74

  Address processing for routing · CPC title

• H04L69/22 Primary

  Parsing or analysis of headers · CPC title

• H04L45/566

  Routing instructions carried by the data packet, e.g. active networks · CPC title

• H04L45/16

  Multipoint routing · CPC title