Packet forwarding system and method using patricia trie configured hardware

摘要

A method is provided for forwarding packets. Using a control plane state machine, addresses in a packet header are examined to derive a pointer value. The pointer value is used to access entries in a result database to identify routing information, a buffer pool ID associated with a location in memory, and a queue ID. A direct memory access (DMA) engine writes the packet into the memory location in response to the first message including the buffer pool ID. The QM prepares a second message associated with the packet, the second message including the routing information, the memory allocation in the buffer pool ID, and the queue ID. An operating system reads the second message, reads the packet from the memory allocation, modifies the packet header using the routing information, and writes the modified packet back into the memory allocation.