Passing a communication control block from host to a local device such that a message is processed on the device

US20010023460A1Inactive Publication Date: 2001-09-20ALACRITECH
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Patent Information

Authority / Receiving Office
US · United States
Current Assignee / Owner
Publication Date
2001-09-20
Estimated Expiration
Not applicable · inactive patent

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Abstract

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.
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Description

[0001] This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. .sctn. 120 of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 436,603, filed Nov. 12, 1999, which in turn claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. .sctn. 120 of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 067,544, filed Apr. 27, 1998, which in turn claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. .sctn. 119(e) of the Provisional Application Serial No. 60 / 061,809, filed Oct. 14, 1997. The complete disclosures of: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 436,603; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 067,544; and Provisional Application Serial No. 60 / 061,809 are incorporated herein by reference.

[0002] The present invention relates generally to computer or other networks, and more particularly to protocol processing for information communicated between hosts such as computers connected to a network.

[0003] The advantages of network computing are increasingly evident. The convenience and efficiency of providing information, communication or computational power to individuals ...

Examples

Embodiment Construction

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[0123] So the next question is what to do about the network packets that do not fit our criteria. The answer shown in FIG. 16 is to use two modes of operation: One in which the network frames are processed on the INIC through TCP and one in which the card operates like a typical dumb NIC. We call these two modes fast-path, and slow-path. In the slow-path case, network frames are handed to the system at the MAC layer and passed up through the host protocol stack like any other network frame. In the fast path case, network data is given to the host after the headers have been processed and stripped.

[0124] The transmit case works in much the same fashion. In slow-path mode the packets are given to the INIC with all of the headers attached. The INIC simply sends these packets out as if it were a dumb NIC. In fast-path mode, the host gives raw data to the INIC which it must carve into MSS sized segments, add headers to the data, perform checksums on the segment, and then send it out on ...