Virtual IDE interface and protocol for use in IDE redirection communication

A machine accessible medium that provides instructions, which when accessed, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:

• cooperating with a plurality of registers to provide a set of IDE controller registers and a set of virtual IDE device registers to a central processing unit;
• receiving data written to the set of IDE controller registers or to the set of virtual IDE device registers;
• and
• transmitting at least a portion of the data into a network, addressed for reception by a remote computer.

A system comprising:

• a central processing unit in data communication with a memory device;
• a peripheral bus coupling the central processing unit to a set of virtual IDE device registers;
• a physical drive in data communication with the central processing unit;
• a network controller in data communication with the virtual IDE device registers;
• a microcontroller coupled to the network controller and to the set of virtual IDE device registers;
• and
• a memory device coupled to the microcontroller, the memory device storing commands that cause the microcontroller to read and write data to and from a management console through the network controller.

A method of conducting an IDE redirection session, the method comprising:

• awaiting an IDE command to be received from a set of registers;
• communicating the received IDE command to a layer of a network protocol stack providing TCP/IP functionality;
• awaiting reception of a response to the IDE command from the layer of the protocol stack;
• and
• communicating the response to the set of registers.