TECHNIQUES FOR OFFLOADING CRYPTOGRAPHIC PROCESSING FOR MULTIPLE NETWORK TRAFFIC STREAMS

摘要

A Security Asssociation (SA) lookup table is maintained at a network interface. The SA data is stored in a memory external to the network interface, for example, in the memory of a host electronic system in which t he network interface provides network access. The lookup table stores sufficien t information for the network interface, or another system component, to acces s the SA data. When a cryptography operation is to be performed, the SA data i s retrieved from the external memory and delivered to the processor performing the cryptographic opeations. In one embodiment, destination Internet Protoco l (IP) address and the IPSec protocol are checked after the SA data is retriev ed from the external memory. In one embodiment, the lookup table entries contai n only an offset value from a base address value to locate the SA data.