A NETWORK DEVICE FOR SUPPORTING MULTIPLE UPPER LAYER NETWORK PROTOCOLS OVER A SINGLE NETWORK CONNECTION

摘要

A common command interface (CCI) provides an interface abstraction allowing network device applications to maintain one set of code for each command regardless of which command interface (e.g., web, CLI, NMS, etc.) initiates the command. That is, the command code in each application may be shared across multiple command interfaces. The interface abstraction allows new applications including additional commands to be added to a network device and existing applications to be dynamically upgraded to include new and/or modified commands without having to modify the CCI. Thus, the network device may provide the increased flexibility of having multiple command interfaces while minimizing the complexity required to maintain commands across those interfaces. In addition, a community command interface may be used to connect the common command interfaces of multiple network devices.