Research and implementation of ForCES redirect channel based on Linux kernel

ForCES(Forwarding and Control Element Separation)-based router (ForTER) can be well positioned to meet the requirements (include openness, scalability, flexibility, etc.) of next generation routers. Due to the separation of Forwarding Element (FE) and Control Element (CE), the ForTER interfaces at FE site, which act as traditional router interfaces, are not directly visible to CE-site routing applications which handle routing protocol packets like OSPF, RIP, etc. Thus, most existing routing applications like zebra don´t work normally when transplanted in ForTER environment. In order to solve this problem, this paper firstly describes the concept of redirect packets and the redirect channel; secondly model the redirect channel; then analysis the factors which affect the redirect channel throughput; and focuses on the implementation mechanism of redirect channel on FE-side and CE-side; at last, we test and analysis the performance of the redirect channel.