The development of novel switching devices by using embedded microprocessing system running linux

This paper discusses the development of novel switching devices using embedded microporcessing systems. It first reviews on basic Ethernet Switch operations and the Spanning tree protocol (STP). It then gives a brief analysis on Linux STP implementation and bridge configuration tools. The aim of the analysis is to lay a foundation for latter discussion on how novel switching devices can be developed based on the bridging codes. To facilitate the discussion, a new kind of Ethernet switches (with modified STP operations) proposed by the authors of this paper is used as an example. This practical example demonstrates how kernel programming on Linux and some modifications on configuration tools can be made to develop new switching devices. Experiments on the newly developed switches are also reported. The results show that these new switches can provide better security for STP networks. At the end of the paper, discussion on how to port the design to embedded miscroprocessing systems is also given. ©2008 IEEE.