MEDIA ATTACHMENT UNIT MANAGEMENT INTERFACE

摘要

Apparatus and method for simply, efficiently and economically accessing every media attachment unit (MAU) (115) management information base (MIB) in a managed repeater (100). MAU MIBs pass through a repeater to a management unit (110) that accesses the repeater for all of the MAU MIBs, in addition to the repeater MIB. Conversely, the management unit passes MAU control information to the MAUs through the repeater. Because all the MIBs in the managed repeater are accessed through the single device, a simple microprocessor interface is used to connect the repeater to the management unit. Also, the managed repeater signals, by generation of an interrupt for example, any changes in the MAU MIB to the management unit. In addition, the management unit easily determines which MAU caused a particular interrupt because all interrupt status signals are consolidated into registers in the repeater. The status signals are stored in a particular format to assist identification of status conditions for particular MAUs.