Patent ID: 7451456
Filing Date: 2008-11-11
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for enabling access between operating system kernel space and a network interface controller (NIC) as well as between user space and said NIC, wherein the method is performed by a kernel-space device driver and a user-space device driver, said method comprising the steps of: enabling access between kernel space and user space via a kernel-space-user-space interface; enabling direct access between user space and said NIC via a user-space-NIC interface; interconnecting said kernel-space-user-space interface and said user-space-NIC interface to enable user-space tunneled access between kernel-space and said NIC; providing simultaneous user-space and kernel-space access to a network layer over a single NIC port; in a first operational mode of the kernel-space device driver, directly accessing the NIC from the kernel-space device driver via a kernel-space-NIC interface; and in a second operational mode of the kernel-space device driver, accessing the NIC via the interconnected kernel-space-user-space interface and user-space-NIC interface; wherein the step of enabling direct access between user space and the NIC and the step of interconnecting the kernel-space-user-space interface and the user-space-NIC interface are executed in application context of a user application, and an operating system orders the kernel-space device driver to switch to the first operational mode in response to a user application failure; wherein the kernel-space device driver switches to the first operational mode if there is no user-space call to the kernel-space device driver for a predetermined period of time.