AUTOMATIC IN-BAND MEDIA ACCESS CONTROL SECURITY (MACsec) KEY UPDATE FOR RETIMER DEVICE

A system, comprising:

• a host device;
• a retimer device in data communication with the host device, the retimer device comprising:
• a system-side receiver in data communication with the host device via a plurality of N egress channels, wherein N is an integer;
• a system-side transmitter in data communication with the host device via a plurality of N ingress channels;
• a security block configured to encrypt or decrypt a data packet based on an encryption key corresponding to an egress channel or an ingress channel;
• packet filtering logic configured to:
• receive data traffic via the N egress channels;
• identify a key packet from the data traffic;
• and
• extract a key update from the key packet;
• and
• a microcontroller configured to:
• receive the key update from the packet filtering logic;
• determine an egress channel or an ingress channel associated with the key update based on an identifier field of the key packet;
• and
• update the encryption key corresponding to the determined egress channel or ingress channel based on the key update.

A method, comprising:

• receiving, via a retimer device, data traffic via a plurality of N egress channels from a host device, wherein N is an integer;
• inspecting, via packet filtering logic of the retimer device, one or more fields of an Ethernet frame within the data traffic to identify a key packet;
• extracting a key update from the key packet;
• storing the key packet in a buffer for retrieval by a microcontroller of the retimer device;
• determining, via the microcontroller, an egress channel or an ingress channel associated with the key update based on an identifier field of the key packet, wherein the identifier field comprises a source address, a destination address, an EtherType, or a virtual local area networking (VLAN) tag;
• updating, via a security block of the retimer device, an encryption key corresponding to the determined egress channel or ingress channel based on the key update;
• generating an acknowledgement packet indicative of a successful update of the encryption key;
• and
• forwarding the acknowledgement packet to the host device via a plurality of N ingress channels.