Aggregated packet forwarding method and circuit system

Abstract

An aggregated packet forwarding method and a circuit system, the aggregated packet forwarding method executed in the circuit system comprising: after receiving a plurality of information frames, converting the plurality of information frames into a unified wireless area network standard information frame, executing an aggregation program, adding de-aggregation information into headers of the plurality of information frames, then, the plurality of sub-information frames are aggregated by the aggregation circuit according to an aggregation rule to form a plurality of aggregated information frames. Afterwards, a rearrangement procedure can be executed according to the serial numbers of the plurality of aggregated information boxes, and repeated information boxes can be ignored when deaggregated. After rearrangement, a plurality of ordered aggregated information frames are sequentially output, then a second-layer forwarding program is executed, and the plurality of aggregated information frames can be de-aggregated to generate a packet to be forwarded.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The specification discloses a packet forwarding method, particularly an aggregation packet forwarding method and circuit system for aggregating received wireless network packets and then forwarding them. Background Art

[0002] With the evolution of network transmission specifications, the transmission rate is getting higher and higher. However, in general network devices (such as WiFi TM routers), the embedded system with limited operating efficiency. Under the limited computing efficiency of the embedded system, the conversion rate of network packets will be affected by the computing efficiency of the processor, especially in the transmission applications between the Internet and wireless local area network (WLAN).

[0003] In particular, for wireless network communication protocols such as WiFi TM etc., the complexity of the wireless network communication protocol increases the processor load required for network packet forwarding to a certain extent, and also affects the performance of the network router. Therefore, how to maximize the performance of wireless network access points (AP) and routers under limited hardware resources has become a major challenge. Summary of the Invention

[0004] In order to improve the performance of packet forwarding for specific wireless network communication protocols and be applicable to network devices with limited storage space and low computing efficiency, the present disclosure proposes an aggregation packet forwarding method and circuit system.

[0005] The proposed circuit system executes the aggregation packet forwarding method. The main circuits of the circuit system include a wireless network interface controller and a wireless network interface card driver. In the method, the wireless network interface controller receives multiple information frames, converts the multiple information frames into a unified wireless local area network standard, and in an aggregation process, adds deaggregation information to the headers of the multiple information frames to form multiple aggregated information frames. Then, the wireless network interface card driver can execute a rearrangement program according to the sequence numbers of the multiple aggregated information frames, and then sequentially output the sorted multiple aggregated information frames. Next, a second-layer forwarding program is executed, and then the multiple aggregated information frames can be deaggregated to generate packets to be forwarded.

[0006] The circuit system uses a rearranger to execute the rearrangement program. In the rearrangement program, the circuit system checks whether there are duplicate information frames in the multiple information frames. If there are duplicate information frames, the duplicate information frames are marked in the headers so that the duplicate information frames can be ignored when deaggregation is performed.

[0007] Further, the rearranger may determine duplicate information frames based on the serial number of the first information frame and the serial number of the last information frame of each aggregated information frame, and mark them in the table header, so that duplicate information frames can be discarded according to the table header information during de-aggregation.

[0008] Further, the second-layer forwarding program is executed by a processor of the circuit system or by a wireless network interface controller operating at the output end of the network device.

[0009] Further, in the aggregation program, aggregation is only performed on information frames of the data type, and the circuit system sets a quantity upper limit for the number of information frames processed for aggregation at one time and a length upper limit for the total length of all information frames processed at one time. Thus, when the number of information frames processed for aggregation at one time reaches the quantity upper limit or the total length of all information frames processed at one time reaches the length upper limit, the aggregation program is aborted.

[0010] Further, a wireless network interface controller is provided at the receiving end of the circuit system, and a plurality of information frames of media access control protocol data units (MPDUs) under the IEEE 802.11 standard are received through the wireless network interface. Then, when converting the plurality of information frames into a unified wireless local area network standard, the circuit system will check whether the information frame under the IEEE 802.11 standard is an information frame of an aggregated media access control service data unit (AMSDU); wherein, if the information frame under the IEEE 802.11 standard is an information frame of an aggregated media access control service data unit, the information frame of the aggregated media access control service data unit is decomposed into a plurality of information frames of media access control service data units (MSDUs) under the IEEE 802.3 standard; if it is not an information frame of an aggregated media access control service data unit, the information frame under the IEEE 802.11 standard is converted into an information frame of a media access control service data unit under the IEEE 802.3 standard.

[0011] Further, the de-aggregation information is added in front of each information frame of the media access control service data unit under the IEEE 802.3 standard, that is, a sub-information frame combining the de-aggregation information and the information frame of the media access control service data unit under the IEEE 802.3 standard is generated.

[0012] When a plurality of sub-information frames are obtained, the plurality of sub-information frames can be aggregated by an aggregation circuit according to an aggregation rule to form an aggregated information frame, and then the aggregated information frame is transmitted to the wireless network interface card driver for processing.

[0013] To enable a further understanding of the features and technical content of the present invention, please refer to the following detailed description and drawings of the present invention. However, the provided drawings are only for reference and illustration and are not used to limit the present invention. Description of the Drawings

[0014] Figure 1 Schematic diagram showing a scenario of running an aggregation packet transfer method;

[0015] Figure 2 Embodiment diagram of a circuit system architecture for running an aggregation packet transfer method;

[0016] Figure 3 One of the flowcharts of an embodiment of an aggregation packet transfer method;

[0017] Figure 4 Embodiment diagram of a circuit system for running an aggregation packet transfer method;

[0018] Figure 5 Another flowchart of an embodiment of an aggregation packet transfer method;

[0019] Figure 6 Example of the content recorded in the aggregation information box format;

[0020] Figure 7 Schematic diagram showing rearrangement of an aggregation information box; and

[0021] Figure 8 Schematic diagram showing adding a discard bit map to the header of an aggregation information box.

[0022] Symbol Explanation

[0023] 10: Network device

[0024] 101: Circuit system

[0025] 100: Internet

[0026] 110: User device

[0027] 21: Wireless network interface controller

[0028] 23: Wireless network interface card driver

[0029] 211: Packet conversion unit

[0030] 212: Packet aggregation unit

[0031] 201: Information box one

[0032] 202: Information box two

[0033] 203: Information box three

[0034] 221: Aggregation information box one

[0035] 222: Aggregation information box two

[0036] 231: Rearrangement Program

[0037] 25: Second - layer Transfer Unit

[0038] 27: De - aggregation Unit

[0039] 401: Information Box

[0040] 403: Packet to be Transferred

[0041] 41: Interface Unit

[0042] 42: Receiver - side Removed Aggregated Media Access Control Service Data Unit

[0043] 43: Receiver - side Aggregation Unit

[0044] 44: Wireless Network Interface Card Driver

[0045] 45: Second - layer Forwarding Unit

[0046] 46: De - aggregation Unit

[0047] 441: Aggregated Receiver - side Rearranger

[0048] Agg_Frame1: First Aggregated Information Box

[0049] Agg_Frame2: Second Aggregated Information Box

[0050] 60: Agg Desc Field

[0051] 80: Drop bitmap Field

[0052] Process of Packet Aggregation in Steps S301 - S315

[0053] Process of Packet Aggregation in Steps S501 - S521 Detailed Implementation Manner

[0054] The following uses specific specific embodiments to illustrate the implementation manners of the present invention. Those skilled in the art can understand the advantages and effects of the present invention from the content disclosed in this specification. The present invention can be implemented or applied through other different specific embodiments, and various details in this specification can also be modified and changed based on different viewpoints and applications without departing from the concept of the present invention. Additionally, the drawings of the present invention are only simple schematic illustrations and are not drawn according to actual sizes, which is hereby stated in advance. The following embodiments will further detail the relevant technical content of the present invention, but the disclosed content is not used to limit the protection scope of the present invention.

[0055] It should be understood that although terms such as "first", "second", "third", etc. may be used herein to describe various elements or signals, these elements or signals should not be limited by these terms. These terms are mainly used to distinguish one element from another, or one signal from another. In addition, the term "or" used herein may, depending on the actual situation, include any combination of one or more of the associated listed items.

[0056] For a specific wireless network communication protocol (such as WiFi TM ), the present disclosure proposes an aggregated packet forwarding method and a circuit system for implementing this method. The circuit system is, for example, a control circuit operating a specific wireless network communication protocol. For the limited storage space in the circuit system for processing the wireless network communication protocol (such as the corresponding WiFi TM control integrated circuit), an effective aggregated packet mechanism is provided. Among them, an aggregated packet reordering mechanism is proposed. Even if the wireless network communication protocol has the characteristic of packet error rate, the aggregated packets can still be effectively sorted and applied to the aggregated packet forwarding mechanism, thereby improving the performance of the relevant circuit system.

[0057] According to an embodiment, the aggregated packet forwarding method is applicable to a network device with poor computing performance. Reference may be made to Figure 1 the schematic diagram showing the scenario of running the aggregated packet forwarding method.

[0058] According to Figure 1 the shown schematic diagram, a local area network is constructed by the network device 10 at the local end to provide packet forwarding services for the user device 110 in the local area network to connect to the Internet 100. The aggregated packet forwarding method runs in the circuit system 101 within the network device 10 and is used to implement a wireless local area network (WiFi

[0059] As shown in the figure, a local area network is constructed by the network device 10 at the local end to provide packet forwarding services for the user device 110 in the local area network to connect to the Internet 100. The aggregated packet forwarding method runs in the circuit system 101 within the network device 10 and is used to implement a wireless local area network (WiFi TM)Exclusive aggregation packet mechanism. According to an embodiment, the circuitry in the network device 10 runs the embedded system, and the embedded system runs a specific wireless network communication protocol. One of its tasks is to perform network packet forwarding. It can parse network packets with multiple information frames under the specific wireless network communication protocol received to obtain the source and destination network addresses, and then determine the packet forwarding path according to the routing algorithm.

[0060] One implementation of the aggregation packet forwarding method is to propose a solution for efficiently performing packet forwarding for the receiver (RX) in the network device. The hardware architecture can refer to Figure 2 the circuit system architecture embodiment diagram shown, which simultaneously shows the processing flow of network packet aggregation in the circuit system. It can also be referred to Figure 3 the flowchart of the embodiment of the aggregation packet forwarding method shown.

[0061] In the field of computer networks and communications, the frame transmitted between the transmitter and the receiver is a network packet including a frame synchronization sequence. The frame is a data packet in the second layer (L2, data link layer) of the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model. The frame synchronization sequence consists of a sequence of bits, which indicates the start and end of the payload in the frame. At the transmitter, the data is encapsulated to form a sequence of frames transmitted to the receiver. At the receiver, actions such as frame conversion, aggregation, rearrangement, forwarding, and de-aggregation are performed in the circuit system proposed in this disclosure, and can be implemented by circuit and software methods.

[0062] Figure 2 It shows that the main components of the circuit system include a wireless network interface controller (NIC) 21 and a wireless network interface card driver 23, which can be connected to each other circuitously or through signal transmission. According to the embodiment of the circuit system, the wireless network interface controller 21 is a wireless network packet processing chip in the network device for forwarding wireless network packets, and the wireless network interface card driver 23 can be a circuit element in the network device or a software element running on the processor in the network device.

[0063] The wireless network interface controller 21 includes a packet conversion unit 211 and a packet aggregation unit 212 for processing network packets at the receiving end. The packet conversion unit 211 processes the conversion of the network packet format. For example, it converts the packet format into an information frame in the format of a Media Access Control Service Data Unit (MSDU) of a specific wireless area network standard (such as IEEE802.3) (abbreviated as MSDU information frame); the packet aggregation unit 212 is used to add de-aggregation information to the header.

[0064] According to one of the embodiments, in order to provide a more efficient processing procedure, in the aggregation procedure, the packet aggregation unit 212 only performs aggregation on information frames of the data type (data frame), and does not perform aggregation on management information frames (management frame) and null information frames (null frame) for other purposes.

[0065] Furthermore, due to the limited computing resources of the circuit system, including the limitation of the memory capacity used (affecting the ability to queue data), the circuit system can set the limit on the number of information frames processed for aggregation at one time and the total length limit of all information frames processed at one time. That is, when the number of information frames processed for aggregation at one time reaches a quantity upper limit, or the total length of all information frames processed at one time reaches a length upper limit, the aggregation procedure is aborted.

[0066] At the beginning, the network device receives a wireless network signal through the wireless network interface. For the network packets transmitted by the wireless network circuit at the transmitting end, the processing circuit at the transmitting end generally fragments the information frames in the MSDU format into multiple information frames of the Media Access Control Protocol Data Unit (MPDU) under a specific wireless area network standard (such as IEEE802.11) (abbreviated as MPDU information frame). After being transmitted through the network to the receiving end, the receiving end processing circuit combines the received MPDU information frames back into the original information frames in the MSDU format.

[0067] In terms of the circuit, the circuit system receives multiple information frames (such as information frame 1 201, information frame 2 202, and information frame 3 203 shown in the figure) through the wireless network interface controller 21 (step S301). The information frames are converted into a unified format by the packet conversion unit 211 (step S303). Then, an aggregation program is executed. After adding de-aggregation information to the header by the packet aggregation unit 212 (step S305), multiple aggregated information frames (such as aggregated information frame 1 221 and aggregated information frame 2 222 shown in the figure) are formed (step S307). After that, the wireless network interface card driver 23 performs an aggregation-based reorder program 231 on the multiple out-of-order aggregated information frames according to the sequence numbers recorded therein. Here, it should be noted that when the circuit system executes the reorder program, it will check whether there are duplicate information frames among the multiple information frames. If there are duplicates, the duplicate information frames will be marked with the information recorded in the header, so that the subsequent de-aggregation can ignore the duplicate information frames and avoid unnecessary processing procedures.

[0068] After the network packet format conversion is completed, after the wireless network interface card driver 23 adds de-aggregation information to the header and performs an aggregation-based reorder program on the multiple aggregated information frames according to the sequence numbers therein, the aggregated information frames are reordered (step S309), and the sorted aggregated information frames are output sequentially to the second-layer forwarding unit (L2forwarding unit) 25 in the circuit system (step S311). The second-layer forwarding unit 25 can be a second-layer forwarding program executed in the processor of the circuit system or a second-layer forwarding program executed in the output-side wireless network interface controller (WNIC) in the network device. After that, the de-aggregation unit 27 in the output-side wireless network interface controller (WNIC) de-aggregates the aggregated information frames with de-aggregation information (deagg_info) to form packets to be forwarded (step S313), and forwards the information frames to the next network node according to the destination transfer information recorded in the header of the information frames (step S315). Among them, the destination network address obtained by parsing the received network packet is used to forward the packets to be forwarded according to the determined forwarding path.

[0069] According to one of the implementation examples of the actual operation of the aggregated packet forwarding method, such as Figure 4 the circuit system embodiment diagram shown, and can be compared simultaneously with Figure 5The process embodiments shown. Among them, components such as the receive - end removed aggregated MAC service data unit (RX - cut AMSDU / aggregated MAC service data unit) 42, the receive - end aggregation unit 43, the wireless network interface card driver 44 (including the aggregated receive - end re - arranger 441), the layer - 2 forwarding unit 45, and the de - aggregation unit 46 can be implemented by circuit and software methods.

[0070] Among them, a wireless network interface controller (WNIC) is provided at the receive - end. Through the interface unit 41 (such as a wireless network interface), the information frame 401 of the media access control protocol data unit (MPDU) under the IEEE802.11 standard is received (step S501), and each MPDU represents an information frame. Then, the receive - end removed aggregated MAC service data unit 42 is used to perform format conversion on the information frame in the IEEE802.11 format. One of the tasks is to check whether the information frame under the IEEE802.11 standard is an information frame of the aggregated MAC service data unit (AMSDU / Aggregate MAC Service Data Unit) (referred to as an aggregated MSDU information frame) (step S503). If it is an aggregated MSDU (AMSDU) information frame (yes), the information frame of the aggregated MAC service data unit will be decomposed into multiple information frames of the media access control service data unit (MSDU) under the IEEE802.3 standard (step S505); if it is not an AMSDU information frame (no), the information frame under the IEEE802.11 standard will be converted into an MSDU information frame under the IEEE802.3 standard (step S507).

[0071] Another task of the receive - end removed aggregated MAC service data unit 42 is to add de - aggregation information in front of each converted MSDU information frame under the IEEE802.3 standard (step S509) for use by the backend de - aggregation component, that is, to generate a sub - information frame (SubFrame) that combines the de - aggregation information and the MSDU information frame under the IEEE802.3 standard, and then transmit it to the receive - end aggregation (RX Aggregation) unit 43 (step S511).

[0072] Here, it should be noted that the information frame (MSDU) that has passed through the network layer is added with a header to become an MSDU sub-information frame. Aggregating many MSDU sub-information frames together forms a set of aggregated MSDU information frames. The work of the above-mentioned receive-side removed aggregated media access control service data unit (RX-cut AMSDU) is to perform format conversion of the IEEE802.11 format information frame in the aggregation process and add disaggregation information to the header of the MSDU information frame. However, when the software or hardware responsible for forwarding in the circuit system already supports converting the aggregated MSDU information frame into an IEEE802.3 format packet, the circuit system may not be provided with the above-mentioned receive-side removed aggregated media access control service data unit.

[0073] After that, when an aggregation circuit (such as aggregation unit 43) at the receiving end receives the sub-information frame obtained through the above process, the sub-information frame will be aggregated into an aggregation information frame (Agg_Frame) according to an aggregation rule (Aggregation Rules) (step S513), and finally this aggregation information frame is transmitted to the wireless network interface card driver 44 for processing (step S515).

[0074] Since there is a packet error rate when transmitting packets through the wireless network communication protocol (such as WiFi TM ), the network packets may be retransmitted or lost, resulting in the disorder of the packet order received by the wireless network interface controller. Therefore, it is necessary to use an aggregation-based receive-side reorderer (ABRR) 441 in the wireless network interface card driver 44 to sort the received aggregation information frame (step S517), and then fill the IEEE802.3 format information into the header of the sorted aggregation information frame to form an aggregated packet (step S519). Then, the formed aggregated packet is transmitted to the disaggregation unit 46 according to a second-layer forwarding table by the second-layer forwarding unit 45 (step S521), and the aggregated packet is disassembled into packets to be forwarded 403 by the disaggregation unit 46 (step S523).

[0075] Here, it should be noted that the second-layer forwarding unit 45 is responsible for address learning and information forwarding of Ethernet information. In the process of forwarding packets by the second-layer forwarding unit 45, the aggregated packet formed in the above steps is transmitted according to the second-layer forwarding table (recording the MAC address table). After the aggregated packet is disassembled by the disaggregation unit 46, it is transmitted to the wireless network interface card at the destination end.

[0076] In this way, through the above Figure 3 and Figure 5In the process of the described embodiment of the aggregated packet forwarding method, when the wireless network interface card driver 44 processes the received information frame, the unit of the network packet can be changed from a single packet to an aggregated packet, and the forwarding efficiency of the circuit system operating at the network access point can be improved proportionally according to the number of aggregated packets.

[0077] It should be noted here that in the above step of sorting the received aggregated information frames by the aggregated receiver resequencer (ABRR), in order to avoid the out-of-order of the aggregated information frames and reduce the complexity of the aggregated receiver resequencer 441, the aggregated information frames generated by the receiver aggregation unit 43 should satisfy the following characteristics. First, the packet transmitters recorded in the header of the aggregated information frame belong to the same wireless network base station (STA). This condition is used to ensure that the aggregated packets can be sorted in units of the wireless network base station. Second, the sequence numbers recorded in the header of the aggregated information frame need to be continuous. This condition is used to reduce the complexity of the aggregated receiver resequencer 441.

[0078] Furthermore, the wireless network communication protocol (such as WiFi TM ) provides an Aggregate MAC protocol data unit (A-MPDU) to aggregate multiple MPDU information frames of the same wireless network base station, and then simultaneously transmits the deaggregated information and information such as IEEE802.3 format MSDU information frames through the wireless network, thereby reducing the protocol overhead, that is, reducing the processor load during network packet forwarding due to the complexity of the wireless network communication protocol. Therefore, the performance of the wireless network can be improved.

[0079] However, because the wireless network has a packet error rate, when the WLAN sequence number in the received aggregated MPDU (A-MPDU) information frame at the receiving end of the circuit system cannot be guaranteed to be continuous, the packet aggregation unit at the receiving end of the circuit system (such as Figure 2 the packet aggregation unit 212) will perform packet aggregation according to the following listed aggregation rules to ensure that the information frames in the generated aggregated packet have continuous WLAN sequence numbers and are packets of the same wireless network base station.

[0080] The aggregation rules followed by the receiving end packet aggregation unit include:

[0081] First, MPDU information frames of the same wireless network base station will be combined into the same aggregated information frame.

[0082] Second, only the MPDU information frames in the IEEE 802.11 format (such as the aggregated MSDU (A-MSDU) information frame or the non-aggregated MSDU (non-AMSDU) information frame) or the MPDU information frames in the IEEE 802.3 format can form an aggregated information frame.

[0083] Third, only the MPDU information frames in the IEEE 802.11 format with the frame type of the IEEE 802.11 format being a data frame and not a null data can form an aggregated information frame.

[0084] Fourth, only the MPDU information frames with consecutive sequence numbers in the IEEE 802.11 format are within the same aggregated information frame, and the MSDU information frames within the aggregated MSDU information frame are regarded as information frames with the same IEEE 802.11 format sequence number.

[0085] Fifth, the MSDU information frames belonging to the same aggregated MSDU information frame are within the same aggregated information frame.

[0086] Sixth, the following situations will interrupt the ongoing aggregation process at the receiving end of the circuit system:

[0087] The first situation is that when the number of MPDU information frames in the IEEE 802.11 format (aggregated MSDU information frame or non-aggregated MSDU information frame) or the MPDU information frames in the IEEE 802.3 format within the aggregated information frame reaches an upper limit value, the aggregation process will be interrupted.

[0088] The second situation is that when the total length of all sub-information frames within the receiving end aggregated information frame plus the padding bit values filled therein reaches another upper limit value, the aggregation process will be interrupted.

[0089] The third situation is that when the receive queue (RXqueue) of the hardware media access control (MAC) is empty, the aggregation process will be interrupted.

[0090] Next, when running the aggregated packet forwarding method, the content recorded in the format of the aggregated information frame (Agg_Frame) used can refer to Figure 6 the example shown.

[0091] In the figure, "n" represents the number of sub - frames in the aggregation information frame. Each sub - frame consists of four parts, including "Agg Desc", "deagg_info", "RX MSDU", and "padding". Among them, the Agg Desc field 60 provides the aggregation information of the sub - frame. The original text is "aggregation descriptor", which provides information for the above - mentioned wireless network interface card driver (WNIC driver) to process. Some of the fields that may be included in the aggregation information are:

[0092] "RX_AGG_EN" is used to mark whether the information frame is an aggregation frame. For example, "RX_AGG_EN = 0" represents a single information frame (MSDU), rather than an aggregation frame; "RX_AGG_TOTAL_LEN" is used to record the total length of the aggregation information frame (in bytes); "RX_AGG_MSDU_NUM" is used to record the number of information frames in the aggregation information frame; "SEQ_START" is used to record the sequence number of the first information frame; "SEQ_END" is used to record the sequence number of the last information frame.

[0093] The "deagg_info" field in the sub - frame is used by the backend de - aggregation unit. This field information is filled in by the receiving end after removing the aggregated media access control service data unit (RX - cut AMSDU, such as Figure 4 component 42). The following are some of the fields that "deagg_info" may include:

[0094] "SubFrame Length" is used to record the length of the sub - frame, in bytes; "MSDU_last" is used to record whether it is the last information frame in the MPDU information frame. Assuming that the received IEEE802.11 - formatted MPDU information frame is an aggregated MSDU (AMSDU) information frame, which contains N MSDUs, then the MSDU_last of the first to the (N - 1)th MSDUs is 0, and the MSDU_last of the Nth MSDU is 1; "RX MSDU" is used to record the content of the MSDU information frame.

[0095] The "Padding" in the sub - frame is the filled bit value, and its length ranges from 1 to (N - 1). It is used for N - byte memory alignment for efficient memory access. This field is filled in by the aggregation unit at the receiving end.

[0096] Further, when the wireless network interface card driver receives the aggregated information frames from the wireless network interface card, the Aggregate Receiver Rearranger (ABRR) rearranges the information frames. The main tasks include:

[0097] The first task is to sort the aggregated information frames, providing the packet transmission order based on the wireless area network serial number. The difference from the reordering mechanism of the traditional receiver (RX reorder) is that the Aggregate Receiver Rearranger sorts the aggregated information frames in units of aggregated information frames, according to the serial number of the first information frame (SEQ_START) and the serial number of the last information frame (SEQ_END) recorded in the received data (RXD).

[0098] For the schematic diagram of rearranging the aggregated information frames, please refer to Figure 7 , which shows a receiver reorder queue in the figure. When there is an error in the wireless network transmission, resulting in the IEEE 802.11 format MPDU information frames (SEQ_START = 10, SEQ_END = 20) with serial numbers from 10 to 20 in the second aggregated information frame Agg_Frame2 being received by the receiver later than the IEEE 802.11 format information frames with serial numbers from 21 to 30 in the first aggregated information frame Agg_Frame1, the Aggregate Receiver Rearranger in the circuit system will first place the first aggregated information frame Agg_Frame1 in this receiver reorder queue. After the second aggregated information frame Agg_Frame2 is received and forwarded, the first aggregated information frame Agg_Frame1 is then forwarded. This approach improves the drawback of the original receiver reorder mechanism that requires reordering each packet, thereby improving the forwarding efficiency.

[0099] The second task is that the circuit system will, according to the wireless area network serial number (WLAN SEQ) information provided by the received data of each aggregated information frame, when the serial number ranges (SEQ range) of two aggregated information frames overlap, the Aggregate Receiver Rearranger will remove the packets with the same wireless area network serial number as other aggregated information frames.

[0100] For the schematic diagram of removing packets with overlapping serial number ranges, please refer to Figure 8, according to one of the embodiments, as shown in the figure, a Drop bitmap field 80 is added to the header of the aggregation information frame. In the rearrangement process, the aggregation receiver rearranger determines which information frames are duplicate based on the sequence number (SEQ_START) of the first information frame and the sequence number (SEQ_END) of the last information frame of each aggregation information frame, and marks them in the header, such as the Drop bitmap field 80 shown in the figure, so that in subsequent de-aggregation steps, the de-aggregation unit can discard the duplicate information frames according to the information in the Drop bitmap field 80. However, the circuit system may not consider the problem of reduced performance caused by repeatedly transmitting the same packet, and thus may not use the packet discard mechanism of the Drop bitmap field 80.

[0101] In summary, according to the above description of the embodiments of the aggregation packet transmission method and the circuit system, the circuit system operates in a network device. The aggregation packet transmission method provides a transmission mechanism for aggregation packets, combines packets with the same characteristics into aggregation packets, and then performs packet transmission, which can reduce the packet transmission rate, and thus is applicable to network devices with limited storage space and low computing performance. The rearrangement process based on the aggregation information frame is also used in this aggregation packet transmission mechanism, so that under the characteristic of packet error rate in the wireless local area network, the aggregation packets can be effectively sorted, and thus the complexity of the aggregation receiver rearranger can also be reduced.

[0102] The content disclosed above is only the preferred feasible embodiment of the present invention, and does not limit the claims of the present invention. Therefore, all equivalent technical changes made by using the content of the specification and drawings of the present invention are included in the claims of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method for aggregating packet forwarding, running in a circuit system, includes: Receiving a plurality of information frames; After converting the plurality of information frames into a unified wireless local area network standard, performing an aggregation program, wherein a disaggregation information is added to a header of the plurality of information frames to form a plurality of aggregated information frames; Performing a rearrangement program according to the sequence numbers of the plurality of aggregated information frames; After sequentially outputting the sorted plurality of aggregated information frames, performing a second-layer forwarding program; and After the second-layer forwarding program, disaggregating the plurality of aggregated information frames to generate packets to be forwarded.

2. The aggregation packet forwarding method according to claim 1, wherein, During the execution of the rearrangement program, the circuit system checks whether there are duplicate information frames in each aggregated information frame. If there are duplicate information frames, the duplicate information frames are marked in the header so that the duplicate information frames are ignored during disaggregation.

3. The aggregation packet forwarding method according to claim 2, wherein During the rearrangement program, duplicate information frames are judged according to the sequence number of a first information frame and the sequence number of a last information frame of each aggregated information frame, and are marked in the header so that the duplicate information frames are discarded during disaggregation.

4. The method for aggregating packet forwarding according to claim 1, wherein the second-layer forwarding program is executed by a processor of the circuit system or by a wireless network interface controller running at an output end in a network device.

5. The aggregation packet forwarding method according to claim 1, wherein When the number of information frames aggregated at one time reaches a quantity upper limit, or the total length of all information frames processed at one time reaches a length upper limit, the aggregation program is aborted.

6. The aggregation packet forwarding method according to claim 1, wherein After parsing a network packet having the plurality of information frames under a received wireless network communication protocol, the destination network address is parsed from the packet to determine a forwarding path of the packet to be forwarded according to a routing algorithm.

7. The aggregation packet forwarding method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein, When converting the plurality of information frames into a unified wireless local area network standard, it is checked whether an information frame under the IEEE802.11 standard is an information frame of an aggregated media access control service data unit; wherein, if the information frame under the IEEE802.11 standard is the information frame of the aggregated media access control service data unit, the information frame of the aggregated media access control service data unit is decomposed into a plurality of information frames of media access control service data units under the IEEE802.3 standard; if it is not the information frame of the aggregated media access control service data unit, the information frame under the IEEE802.11 standard is converted into an information frame of a media access control service data unit under the IEEE802.3 standard.

8. The aggregation packet forwarding method according to claim 7, wherein, Adding the disaggregation information in front of each information frame of the media access control service data unit under the IEEE802.3 standard to generate a sub-information frame combining the disaggregation information and the information frame of the media access control service data unit under the IEEE802.3 standard.

9. The aggregation packet forwarding method according to claim 8, wherein, When a plurality of sub-information frames are obtained, the plurality of sub-information frames are aggregated into the aggregated information frame by an aggregation circuit according to an aggregation rule.

10. A circuit system for executing an aggregation program, includes: A wireless network interface controller, which performs packet conversion and packet aggregation; And A wireless network interface card driver that connects to the wireless network interface controller to perform a frame-based rearrangement process for out-of-order aggregated frames; An implemented aggregated packet forwarding method includes: Receiving, by the wireless network interface controller, a plurality of frames, converting the plurality of frames into a unified wireless local area network standard, and in an aggregation process, adding a de-aggregation message to a header of the plurality of frames to form a plurality of aggregated frames; The wireless network interface card driver performs a rearrangement process according to the sequence numbers of the plurality of aggregated frames; After sequentially outputting the sorted plurality of aggregated frames, performing a second-layer forwarding process; and After the second-layer forwarding process, de-aggregating the plurality of aggregated frames to generate packets to be forwarded.

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