ATOMICALLY UPDATING TERNARY CONTENT ADDRESSABLE MEMORY-BASED ACCESS CONTROL LISTS

摘要

Embodiments described herein provide techniques for atomically updating a ternary content addressable memory (TCAM)-based access control list (ACL). According to one embodiment, a current version bit of the ACL is determined. The current version bit indicates that a rule in the ACL is active is the version flag in the rule matches the current version bit. Through these techniques, a first set of rules can be modified to create a second set of rules (e.g., by insertions, deletions, and replacements, etc.).

主权项

1. A method for atomically updating an access control list stored in a ternary content addressable memory (TCAM), the method comprising:
receiving an update to apply to the access control list; identifying a first group of entries in the TCAM using an active version bit, wherein each entry in the first group has a ternary flag has a value matching a current value of the active version bit, wherein the ternary flag value indicates one of matching, not matching, or always matching the active version bit; updating the ternary flag value of one or more entries in the TCAM to define a second group of entries, wherein each entry in the second group of entries has ternary flag value of either not matching or always matching; and atomically performing the update by inverting the value of the active version bit.