Method and apparatus for dynamic distributed packet tracing and analysis

Abstract

A packet filter can be programmed by a remote controller to detect packets meeting a particular criterion and to report detection of these packets to the controller. The reports from the packet filter are collected and analyzed by the remote controller. A streams module that incorporates the packet filter is used within a Solaris operating system environment that has been enhanced to support an object framework. The streams module exports a programming interface to the packet filter defined in an interface definition language (IDL). The streams module can be pushed onto a network device in a similar fashion to other streams modules. The streams module responds to requests from one remote controller or to requests from more than one remote controller. These remote controller requests arrive as remote procedure call (RPC) requests on the IDL object references exported by the module. The packet filter within the streams module is fully programmable, and it collects and returns information to the controller through a call back object on the controller. The particular traces collected can be configured dynamically by the controller, by issuing RPC requests to the packet filters through the IDL interfaces. Alternately, a standard Solaris environment can be used. In such a case, a standard (i.e., non-object oriented) RPC approach is employed. Furthermore, the above approach will work with other UNIX systems that support stream modules. Moreover, because other operating systems have streams-like input/output capabilities, the approach can be extended to non-UNIX systems such as DOS, Windows NT, OS/2 Warp or the Macintosh operating system.