Patent ID: 7779275

Claim:
A method, implemented by at least one machine, of communicating between a first component and a second component, the first component and second component being communicatively connected to each other through a bus having protected and non-protected bus configuration address spaces and being accessible to components other than the first component and the second component, the method comprising: establishing a communication connection between the first component and the second component, wherein the communication connection transmits information through the bus; transmitting a datum between the first component and the second component using the protected bus configuration address space allowing the first component only under special conditions to communicate with the second component, wherein the protected bus configuration address space is mapped independently of the non-protected bus configuration address space, wherein non-existence of special conditions permits communication using the non-protected bus configuration address space and wherein existence of the special conditions permits communication using the non-protected and protected bus configuration address spaces, wherein the protected bus configuration address space is protected via an access restriction mechanism that only allows access to the protected bus configuration address space from the first component and second component if the first and second components are identified as trusted components; transmitting a datum between the first component and the second component using the non-protected bus configuration address space; mapping communication requests into both the protected bus configuration address space and the non-protected bus configuration address space using registers of the second component if the second component is one that is identified as a trusted component; and mapping communication requests into only the non-protected bus configuration address space using registers of the second component if the second component is not identified as a trusted component.