Apparatuses and methods involving managing port-address assignments

An apparatus for a local area network characterized by a plurality of network modules to convey data over a physical communication channel and with at least one of the network modules including a management communications bus for communication among a plurality of logic nodes via a communications protocol, the apparatus comprising at one of the plurality of logic nodes,

• a plurality of ports to provide communication;
• a plurality of shared registers having a port address table to provide configurable port-address assignments that identify respective ones of the plurality of ports;
• a management interface controller to communicate with the plurality of ports and to access at least one register of the plurality of shared registers, via a selected one of the plurality of ports, and in response to configure or manage the port-address assignments within the port address table;
• and
• the apparatus further including a master logic node of the plurality of logic nodes, wherein the master logic node is to manage the plurality of logic nodes via a Serial Management Interface as specified by the communications protocol, the communications protocol being compliant with an industry standard that defines an Ethernet-based local-area network (LAN) technology, by changing at least one of the port-address assignments within the port address table and to broadcast, via the management communications bus, a communication to a plurality of addressable locations, each of the addressable locations corresponding to one of the plurality of logic nodes.

An apparatus for a local area network characterized by a plurality of network modules to convey data over a physical communication channel and with at least one of the network modules including a management communications bus for communication among a plurality of logic nodes via a communications protocol, the apparatus comprising at one of the plurality of logic nodes,

• a plurality of ports to provide communication;
• a plurality of shared registers having a port address table to provide configurable port-address assignments that identify respective ones of the plurality of ports;
• a management interface controller to communicate with the plurality of ports and to access at least one register of the plurality of shared registers, via a selected one of the plurality of ports, and in response to configure or manage the port-address assignments within the port address table;
• and
• the apparatus further including the management communications bus for communication among the plurality of logic nodes and wherein the plurality of logic nodes include a master logic node and a plurality of slave logic nodes, and wherein the one of the plurality of logic nodes includes one of the slave logic nodes having the plurality of ports, the plurality of shared registers and the management interface controller.

A method for use within a local area network characterized by a plurality of network modules configured to convey data over a physical communication channel and with at least one of the network modules including a management communications bus for communication among a plurality of logic nodes via a communications protocol and in response to communications sent over the management communications bus, the method comprising:

• communicating over the management communications bus among the plurality of logic nodes;
• at one of the plurality of logic nodes, the one logic node having a plurality of ports,
• providing, on one or more of a plurality of shared registers, a port address table having configurable port-address assignments which identify respective ones of the plurality of ports and the port address table being associated with at least one broadcast address to identify multiple ports across one or more of the plurality of logic nodes;
• and
• accessing, via communication with the plurality of ports, at least one register associated with a selected one of the plurality of ports and configuring or managing the port-address assignments within the port address table.