Patent ID: 7869411
Filing Date: 2011-01-11
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of handling a frame in an electronic network device, the method comprising: receiving a frame having multiple field values at a port of the electronic network device; parsing the received frame to obtain the field values and generating two or more slices from the received frame, wherein each slice contains at least some of the parsed field values including a source port field value and a frame format field value; applying the two or more slices to a search engine having a rules table, wherein each rule in the rules table has a common header comprising a source port identifier specifying the port or ports to which the rule applies and a frame format identifier specifying the frame format to which the rule applies, wherein the source port identifier specifies that the rule applies to frames received on at least one of a specific port, an even port or any port, and the frame format identifier specifies the rule applies to at least one of 1 q_tagged frames, double_tagged frames, 802 determining matching rules by matching information in the two or more slices with information in the common header of each rule in the rules table by executing a parallel comparison at wire speed between the information in the two or more slices and the information in the common header of each rule in the rules table; selecting a highest priority rule from the matching rules; using the address of the highest priority rule to index a policy table to obtain an action to perform on the received frame; and performing the action obtained from the policy table on the received frame.