Patent ID: 8116199
Filing Date: 2012-02-14
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for monitoring communication on a network comprising: configuring a classifier using a monitoring rule; receiving a plurality of packets from the network; analyzing each of the plurality of packets by the classifier to determine to which of the plurality of packets satisfies the monitoring rule; forwarding any of the plurality of packets that satisfy the monitoring rule to a first hardware receive ring (HRR) located on a first physical network interface (NI); forwarding any of the plurality of packets that do not satisfy the monitoring rule to a second HRR; transmitting a first number of packets from the first HRR directly to user level memory, wherein the user level memory resides on a host operatively connected to the first physical NI; analyzing the first number of packets, located in user level memory; transmitting a second number of packets from the second HRR to a virtual network interface card (VNIC); transmitting the second number of packets from the VNIC to a first hardware transmit ring (HTR) on a second physical NI; and transmitting the second number of packets from the first HTR to the network.