Intel IXP400 manual Additional Database Features, User-Defined Field, IxEthDB Feature Set

Intel® IXP400 Software

Access-Layer Components: Ethernet Database (IxEthDB) API

10.4.3Feature Set

IxEthDB is structured in a feature set, which can be enabled, disabled and configured at run time. Since IxEthDB provides support for NPE features, the feature set presented to client code at any one time depends on the run-time configuration of the NPEs. IxEthDB can detect the capabilities of each NPE microcode image and expose only those features supported by that image.

Table 34. IxEthDB Feature Set

Feature	Description	Required NPE Capabilities	Relation to Other
			Features
Ethernet Learning	Implements a software database on	NPE Learning Assistance
	the Intel XScale core for storing and
		feature is optional. Needed for
(Source MAC Address	managing (searching, aging, etc.)		None
		automated population of
Learning)	source MAC addresses detected
		database by IxEthAcc.
	on received packets.
Ethernet Filtering	Provides Ethernet NPEs with MAC		Depends on Ethernet
	address data (learning/filtering
		NPE Learning Assistance and	Learning. Mutually
(Destination MAC	trees) used to filter frames
		Filtering capabilities	exclusive with 802.3/
Address Filtering)	depending on frame destination
			802.11 Frame Conversion.
	MAC address.
VLAN / QoS	Configures VLAN and QoS support.	NPE VLAN and QoS support.	None
Firewall (Source MAC	Configures NPE firewall mode and
	provides MAC address list for	NPE MAC-based Firewall	None
Address Based)
	allowing/blocking.
	Configures NPE MAC address
802.3 / 802.11 Frame	database, gateway access point	NPE 802.3 / 802.11 Frame	Mutually exclusive with
Conversion	database and frame conversion	Conversion	Ethernet Filtering
	parameters.
Spanning Tree Protocol	Sets Ethernet ports in blocked/	NPE STP support	None
	unblocked STP state.

The API can be used to enable or disable individual IxEthDB services on each NPE, assuming that an NPE has a given capability. For example, NPE A, NPE B and NPE C may all have microcode images with Ethernet Learning and Ethernet Filtering support. Using ixEthDBFeatureEnable(), the Ethernet Filtering capability could be disabled on NPE C.

Certain features are always functional and cannot be actually disabled. In these situations disabling the feature will cause its corresponding API to become inaccessible (returning IX_ETH_DB_FEATURE_UNAVAILABLE), and the feature will be configured in such a way that the NPE behaves as if the feature is not implemented.

Note: Ethernet Learning and Ethernet Filtering features are ENABLED by default when those capabilities are detected on NPE microcode. All remaining features are disabled by default.

10.4.4Additional Database Features

10.4.4.1User-Defined Field

IxEthDB provides functions to associate a user-defined field to a database record, and later retrieve the value of that field. The user-defined field is passed as a (void *) parameter, hence it can be used for any purpose (such as identifying a structure). Retrieving the user-defined field from a record is

April 2005	IXP400 Software Version 2.0	Programmer’s Guide
178	Document Number: 252539, Revision: 007