US 12,149,441 B2
Determining flow paths of packets through nodes of a network
Wenxuan Zhou, Mountain View, CA (US); and Giri Prashanth Subramanian, Sunnyvale, CA (US)
Assigned to VMware LLC, Palo Alto, CA (US)
Filed by VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US)
Filed on Jun. 28, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/343,038.
Application 18/343,038 is a division of application No. 16/748,660, filed on Jan. 21, 2020, granted, now 11,757,768.
Prior Publication US 2023/0344755 A1, Oct. 26, 2023
Int. Cl. H04L 45/00 (2022.01); H04L 9/40 (2022.01); H04L 41/12 (2022.01); H04L 41/22 (2022.01); H04L 45/122 (2022.01); H04L 45/741 (2022.01); H04L 101/622 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 45/38 (2013.01) [H04L 41/12 (2013.01); H04L 41/22 (2013.01); H04L 45/122 (2013.01); H04L 45/741 (2013.01); H04L 63/0245 (2013.01); H04L 2101/622 (2022.05)] 8 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. In a network of devices, a method of determining a flow path between two of the devices in response to a search query, said method comprising:
processing the search query into a plurality of atoms, the plurality of atoms including descriptors for network locations and an action constraint inferred from the descriptors;
extracting source and destination location information from network locations specified by the plurality of atoms in the search query;
determining a first subnet associated with the source location information and a second subnet associated with the destination location information;
upon determining that the first subnet and the second subnet are the same subnet, determining a first flow path between a first device associated with the source location information and a second device associated with the destination location information, using the destination location information and a MAC address of the second device; and
upon determining that the first subnet and the second subnet are not the same subnet, determining a second flow path between the first device and the second device using the destination location information and a MAC address of a gateway device of the first subnet;
wherein the steps of determining the first flow path and determining the second flow path comprise compiling the plurality of atoms into a state machine including a plurality of states and transitions between the plurality of states representing a regular expression of the descriptors and the action constraint.