The Active Bridge
A Demonstration of Active Networks
The active bridge can be reprogrammed ``on the fly'', with
loadable modules called switchlets. To demonstrate the use of the active
property, we incrementally extend what is initially a programmable
buffered repeater with switchlets into a self-learning bridge, and then
a bridge supporting spanning tree algorithms. To demonstrate the
agility that active networking gives, we show how it is possible to upgrade
a network from an ``old'' protocol to a ``new'' protocol on-the-fly.
Moreover, we are able to take advantage of information unavailable to the
implementors of either protocol to validate the new protocol and fall back
to the old protocol if an error is detected. This shows that the
Active Bridge can protect itself from some algorithmic failures in loadable
modules.
People
Documents
Software
This software consists of a set of patches to Objective
Caml version 1.07 and the OCaml code which comprises the Active Bridge
itself.
-
Click here
to download a tarball containing both the Active Bridge and the OCaml patch
-
Click here
to download the OCaml patch only
-
Click here
to download a tarball containing the Active Bridge, an early version of SANE, and the OCaml patch
Please send inquiries, comments, and corrections to sware-maint@www.cis.upenn.edu
.