Blocking ip datagrams in a multi-path channel point-to-point environment

Abstract

In a computing network system environment having a gateway device that is electronically connected from one side to a plurality of initiating hosts and on another side to at least one local area network, in turn connecting a plurality of hosts are connected to the gateway device, a method and apparatus for eliminating any need for building a separate and special protocol data unit element for each header. The computer network environment uses a Multi-path channel communication protocol as well as protocol data units to point to various portions of data. An interface layer is provided between a plurality of protocol stacks and the multi-path channel protocol. The interface layer has a timer which will wait for data from the protocol stack. A list of all buffers are assembled as received comprising of one entry for each data buffer. This buffer list is then transferred to the multi-path channel protocol layer upon expiration of the timer, which is in turn sent to any channel attached processor as one block. A deblocker interface is also provided on all channel attached processors so that any length fields provided in the protocol headers can be used to determine offset of next data element in said block and thus eliminating need for a special header at next data element used by the communication protocol.