Method and apparatus for updating MAC (Media Access Control) address table

Abstract

The invention provides a method and an apparatus for updating an MAC (Media Access Control) address table. The method comprises the following steps of: searching corresponding table items from the MAC address table according to a source MAC address of the Ethernet frame after an Ethernet frame is received; computing a difference value between a system time stamp of the received Ethernet frame and an table item time stamp recorded in the searched entry if the searching is successful; and updating the table item time stamp with the system time stamp when the difference value is greater than a preset value. In the invention, only when the difference value is greater than the preset value, the table item time stamp of the link list can be updated with the system time stamp, and each received Ethernet frame is unnecessarily subjected to write operation, thereby reducing times of carrying out the write operation on the MAC address table, improving the concurrent processing capacity of a multi-core processor to the Ethernet frame and improving the forwarding performance of the Ethernet frame.

Description

technical field [0001] Embodiments of the present invention relate to the technical field of Ethernet frame forwarding at the data link layer, and in particular to a method and device for updating a Media Access Control (Media Access Control, MAC) address table. Background technique [0002] In the existing data link layer forwarding technology, when the network device uses a multi-core processor to operate the Ethernet frame, in order to avoid the operation conflict of the entry of the shared resource, the prior art adopts setting a spin lock or reading and writing In the way of locking, if a spin lock is used, only one holder can acquire the lock at any time, that is to say, at most one processor core can acquire the spin lock at any time. If the spin lock has been held by other processor cores, the processor core will always circulate there until the holder of the spin lock has released the lock, and the word "spin" is thus named; it can also be used Read-write lock mech...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0006] But the defect of this scheme is: because the IP session time is usually all long (such as the aging time of the stable state of the TCP session is usually 1 hour), the aging time of the MAC entry is restricted by the length of the IP session time and cannot be artificially controlled. The aging time of the MAC entry will also be longer, which will affect the aging process of the entry.

[0008] But the defect of this scheme is that: TCAM is a kind of hardware device, which is expensive, so it increases the cost

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