Multi-host processing

摘要

A packet processor provides for rule matching of packets in a network architecture. The packet processor includes a lookup cluster complex having a number of lookup engines and respective on-chip memory units. The on-chip memory stores rules for matching against packet data. A lookup front-end receives lookup requests from multiple hosts, manages traffic among the hosts, and processes these lookup requests to generate key requests for forwarding to the lookup engines. As a result of the rule matching, the lookup engine returns a response message indicating whether a match is found. The lookup front-end further processes the response message and provides a corresponding response to the host.

主权项

1. An apparatus for processing a packet comprising:
a packet processor configured to operate rule matching for packets received from a plurality of hosts; and an input processor comprising:
a queue register configured to receive lookup requests from the plurality of hosts, each lookup request corresponding to a packet;a payload header extractor (PHE) configured to 1) extract a host identifier from each lookup request and store the host identifier extracted from each lookup request, the host identifier indicating the one of the plurality of hosts originating the lookup request, the lookup request indicating a request to determine a path to forward the packet on a network, and 2) generate at least one key request for each lookup request, the at least one key request including a key for comparing against a set of rules to determine the path to forward the packet on the network;a request counter configured to maintain a request count of the number of lookup requests per host in the queue register based on the host identifier of each lookup request;a queue manager configured to compare the request count for each host against a respective input threshold, the queue manager preventing receipt of additional lookup requests from a given host to the queue register in response to the request count for the given host exceeding the respective input threshold; anda scheduler output manager configured to forward the at least one key request for each of the lookup requests from the queue register to the packet processor.