Patent ID: 11900024
Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 0:
1. A networking device, comprising:
a plurality of network interfaces corresponding to physical connections to the networking device, wherein the plurality of network interfaces provide for network communication between the networking device and one or more other devices;
a packet processor, comprising different packet processing stages in the packet processor to process network packets received via the plurality of network interfaces;
a host processor;
a memory;
wherein the host processor is configured to write, to a storage component implemented within the packet processor, metadata for a simulated network packet, wherein the simulated network packet is not received via one of the plurality of network interfaces in order to simulate a network packet without a payload and without sending the network packet to the networking device, wherein the packet processor receives the metadata for the simulated network packet via one or more other interfaces instead of the networking device receiving the network packet with the metadata and the payload via the plurality of network interfaces, wherein, in writing the metadata to the storage component, the host processor bypasses a packet parser that extracts respective metadata from the network packets to separate the respective metadata from respective payloads of the network packets such that the metadata is written to the storage component without being extracted by the packet parser, and wherein the packet parser is upstream of the storage component;
wherein the packet processor is configured to:
include an indication in the metadata for the simulated network packet that indicates that the metadata is for the simulated network packet;
inject the metadata into the different packet processing stages of the packet processor;
identify metadata output from the different packet processing stages as the metadata for the simulated network packet according to the indication included in the metadata; and
write the metadata output to another storage component implemented within the packet processor;

wherein the host processor is configured to read, via the one or more other interfaces, the metadata output for the simulated network packet from the another storage component.