Patent ID: 7933980

Claim:
A method for managing an associated network device using in-band communication signaling, the method comprising: generating an interrupt in accordance with handling of a primary data communication session via the network device via an interrupt generator coupled to a management mode processor; receiving packets including one or more management frames in a management communication session occurring in-band with a plurality of data frames of the primary communication session via a common ingress data interface therewith of the associated network device; storing the packets received at the ingress data interface into a buffer in a data plane with the ingress data interface, the packets stored in an order in which received; processing, via the management mode processor, the packets in the order in which the packets are received into the buffer, the processing further including periodically initiating a management mode servicing process in accordance with the generated interrupt from the coupled interrupt generator to search the buffer to determine whether any of the unprocessed stored packets are the one or more management frames, wherein the determining whether any of the unprocessed stored packets are the one or more management frames further includes determining whether a frame has a special MAC (Media Access Control) address used for management frames; sending, in accordance with the generated interrupt, the one or more management frames determined by the management mode servicing process from the data plane to a management frame interface routine of the associated network device; selectively limiting the processing of the packets stored in the buffer to management frames during operation of the management mode servicing process in accordance with a preselected duration corresponding to the generated interrupt; and processing the one or more management frames; wherein the one or more management frames is one of the group consisting of set network identifier, set IP address, and set subnet mask.