Method for forwarding packets by connecting network segments through a wireless channel and wireless bridging apparatus using the same
OwnerSumie Nakabayashi, Hirotake Wakaiinventors
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Abstract
A wireless bridge selects wireless bridges, each with communication quality at a predetermined level or higher, from other wireless bridges, which are located in a range where the wireless bridge can communicate, as wireless bridges to which a spanning tree protocol (STP) is applied. The wireless bridge adds a MAC header, where a broadcast or multicast address is a forwarding destination address, to a packet to be multicast to a plurality of wireless bridges and transmits the packet from a wireless interface as a multicast-service packet.
Claims19
A wireless bridging apparatus comprising:
- a wireless interface for forwarding packets among network segments;
- means for selecting, from other remotely-located wireless bridging apparatuses with which said wireless bridging apparatus can communicate, at least one connectable wireless bridging apparatus based on communication quality and for allocating logical port identifiers to connected wireless bridging apparatuses;
- a plurality of transmission and reception buffers provided for the logical port identifiers;
- a forwarding controller for forwarding a packet stored in each of the reception buffers to a transmission buffer identified by a destination address;
- and
- means for transmitting and receiving packets to or from other network segments via said transmission and reception buffers and said wireless interface.
A wireless bridging apparatus that allocates logical port identifiers to particular remotely-located wireless bridging apparatuses connected via a wireless interface and that controls a packet forwarding among network segments using the logical port identifiers, said apparatus comprising:
- a plurality of transmission buffers and reception buffers provided for the logical port identifiers allocated to the particular remotely-located bridging apparatuses;
- a transmission buffer provided for a logical port identifier allocated to a multicasting service;
- a forwarding controller that forwards a packet stored in each of said reception buffers to a transmission buffer identified by a destination address;
- and
- a transmission processor that adds a header, which is addressed to a corresponding remotely-located wireless bridging apparatus, to a transmission packet read from a transmission buffer corresponding to a port number of the particular remotely-located wireless bridging apparatus, that adds a multicasting-service header to a transmission packet read from a transmission buffer corresponding to the multicasting-service port identifier, and that transmits the transmission packet to said wireless interface.
A wireless bridging apparatus comprising:
- a wireless interface for use in packet communication in a MAC frame format in a wireless section between network segments in accordance with IEEE802.11;
- a manager that manages a network topology in accordance with a spanning tree protocol defined by IEEE802.1D;
- and
- a transmitter that adds a MAC header to a packet to be broadcast or multicast to a plurality of remotely-located wireless bridging apparatuses and transmits the packet from said wireless interface as a multicasting-service packet, said MAC address including a broadcasting address or a multicasting address as a forwarding destination address.
A wireless packet forwarding method using a wireless bridging apparatus, comprising the steps of:
- selecting wireless bridging apparatuses, each with communication quality at a predetermined level or higher, from other wireless bridging apparatuses, which are located in a range where said wireless bridging apparatus can communicate, as wireless bridging apparatuses to which a spanning tree protocol is applied;
- adding a MAC header to a packet to be transmitted to a plurality of wireless bridging apparatuses through a multicasting service, said MAC header including a broadcasting address or a multicasting address as a forwarding destination address;
- and
- transmitting the packet from a wireless interface of said wireless bridging apparatus as a multicasting-service packet.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.