Patent ID: 7471700
Filing Date: 2008-12-30
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of supporting a maximum transmission unit (MTU) of an external network interface, the method comprising: (a) if a packet data transmission request is received from an upper layer of a virtual network interface included in a routing processor, determining whether amount of packet data to be transmitted and additional header is greater than the MTU of an internal data communication channel of a router; (b) if it is determined that the amount of packet data and additional header is greater than the MTU of the internal data communication channel of the router in step (a), disassembling the packet data into data segments of a predetermined size, such that the amount of data segment and additional header is not greater than the MTU of the internal data communication channel, and transmitting the data segments of the predetermined size to an external IPC interface of a linecard processor; (c) if it is determined that the amount of packet data and additional header is not greater than the MTU of the internal data communication channel in the operating system of the router in step (a), adding the additional header to the packet data, and transmitting the packet data to the external IPC interface; (d) determining whether data received by the external IPC interface is a disassembled data segment; (e) if it is determined that data received by the external IPC interface is the disassembled data segment in step (d), removing the additional header from the received data segment, assembling the received data segments into the original packet data, transmitting the assembled packet data to the external network interface, and requesting a packet data transmission to the external network interface; and (f) if it is determined that the data received by the external IPC interface is not a disassembled data segment in step (d), removing the additional header from the data, transmitting the data to the external network interface, and requesting the packet data transmission to the external network interface.