Patent ID: 7152128

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a datagram at general input/output (GIO) interface from a remote GIO interface coupled through a GIO link, wherein the GIO interface is implemented on a communication port implementing a communication stack including a transaction layer, a data link layer, and a physical layer, the physical layer to receive the datagram; validating content of one or more packets embedded within the received datagram by determining whether the one or more packets meet predetermined framing requirements, the validating performed by each of the physical link layer and the data link layer of the GIO interface; if the framing requirements are met, stripping framing boundaries from the datagram to reveal one or more data link layer packets; and on positive validation of the datagram, issuing an acknowledgment to the remote GIO interface that the datagram was successfully received before promoting the embedded data link layer packets to a transaction layer of the GIO interface, wherein the acknowledgement includes flow control update information to be transmitted to the GIO interface.