JPH11112542A - Inter-network connection method and device therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce the setting work of an inter-network connection device by switching static routing control to dynamic routing control in accordance with an artificial instruction and dynamically updating the routing table. SOLUTION: When a repeating processing part 15 receives repeating data from a LAN interface processing part 16, it refers to the routing table 19b, decides a repeating destination router and transmits repeating data through an ISDN line. A route control management part 13 moves an inner operation from an operation state to a routing collection state based on the instruction of a manager and gives the instruction of routing information collection to a route control part 14. The route control part 14 transmits packets requesting routing information to the other routers by broadcasting and receives a response packet. The route control part 14 rewrites the routing table 19b with received routing information.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a network (for example, a LAN) based on set routing information.
The present invention relates to an inter-network connection method for performing connection between devices and an apparatus thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a routing table storing routing information for determining a data relay destination is provided inside a LAN-to-LAN connecting device (router), and the routing information communicates as the routing information. The destination address of the network and the addresses of other routers that should relay data destined for the network are stored. As a method for maintaining and managing this routing table, conventionally, there have been two control systems of dynamic routing (dynamic routing) and static routing (static routing).

[0003] In the dynamic routing described above, routing information is periodically exchanged between routers. The router dynamically updates a routing table when a specific route is disconnected or a new network is added. I was On the other hand, in the static routing, routing information is set in advance in a nonvolatile storage medium such as a nonvolatile memory in each router.

[0004]

However, in the dynamic routing, it is necessary to periodically exchange routing information. Therefore, in a network using a pay-as-you-go network such as an ISDN line network or a packet switching network, the above-mentioned dynamic routing is required. There has been a problem that the use time of the network is prolonged and an enormous fee is charged, making use of the network difficult.

[0005] In the above static routing, it is not necessary to exchange routing information between routers at regular intervals, but it is necessary to change router settings to disconnect a specific route or add a new network. In large networks, the amount of router settings increases,
There was a problem that the setting work became complicated and the operation became very difficult.

[0006] In order to use these two systems in accordance with the operation of a network, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.
Although there is a device described in Japanese Patent No. 3548, in the above invention, the entire network is operated by dynamic routing to exchange routing information, and a router is started up at the time of restart based on statically held routing information. However, also in this case, it is necessary to periodically exchange routing information, so that a huge amount of charges is required as in the above-described dynamic routing, and there is a problem that the use becomes difficult.

Further, since the routing information used at the time of restart is not updated unless manually updated, there is a problem that it is not possible to cope with addition or change of a route. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and has an object to provide an inter-network connection method and an inter-network connection method that can reduce setting work of an inter-network connection device when performing static routing in a large-scale network using a metered network. The purpose is to provide.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a plurality of network connecting devices which are statically routed and controlled based on routing information for determining a data relay destination. When data is relayed by connecting a network, the routing switching control means performs static routing control in which routing information is not exchanged with another router by the routing control means according to an artificial instruction by an administrator or the like. Is switched to dynamic routing control, and the routing control means temporarily exchanges routing information with another inter-network connecting device to dynamically update the routing table, and a network connecting method is provided. You.

That is, a plurality of networks are usually connected via a wide area network to relay data based on routing information by a control method based on static routing, but the routing information is collected at the request of an administrator. Only at the time, the control method is switched to the control method based on the dynamic routing, and the routing information is exchanged between the routers to obtain the latest routing information.

[0010] Preferably, the routing information is updated in a nonvolatile storage means.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A method and an apparatus for connecting networks according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an example of a system configuration using the network connection method according to the present invention. In the figure, each of LANa to LANe is composed of a terminal device such as a personal computer, a router, a transmission line to which these are connected, and the like. Routers 11 to 51 of each of LANa to LANe are connected to the ISDN network 1 or the like. It is connected to other routers via a pay-as-you-go network so that data can be relayed. For example, the LANa includes a terminal device 10, a router 11, a transmission line L1, and the like. Since the routers 11 to 51 have the same configuration, the configuration of the router 11 will be described as a representative here.

The router 11 performs, for example, a user interface processing unit 12 to which a preset command is input from an administrator, a route control management unit 13 connected to the user interface processing unit 12, and storage control of routing information. A path control unit 14, a relay processing unit 15 for performing data relay processing, and a LAN interface processing unit 16 connected to the relay processing unit 15 and the transmission path L1, respectively.
A WAN interface processing unit 17 connected to the relay processing unit 15 and the ISDN network 1, a nonvolatile memory 18 for holding a routing table 19a in which routing information is written, and a routing table 19b.
And a volatile memory 20 for storing

The user interface processing unit 12 is a module that processes commands for the administrator to configure the router. Route control management unit 13
Is an example of the routing switching control means of the present invention,
It manages the “operation state” and the “routing information collection state” that are the operation states of the router, and issues commands from the user interface processing unit 12 and, if necessary, the route control unit 1.
4 is a module for outputting a predetermined instruction. The route control management unit 13 has a timer for managing the transition time of the “routing information collection state” of the router, and limits the time for collecting the routing information.

The route control unit 14 is an example of the routing control means of the present invention, and collects routing information in accordance with an instruction from the route control management unit 13 when the router of the own device transits to the “routing information collection state”. ,
According to the collected routing information, the volatile memory 2
The routing table 19b in 0 is rewritten. Further, the route control unit 14 determines, based on the rewritten routing information of the routing table 19b,
The storage contents of the routing table 19a in the nonvolatile memory 18 are updated.

When receiving data, the relay processing unit 15 refers to the contents of the routing table 19b in the volatile memory 20, determines a relay destination router, and relays the data to an appropriate interface. Routing table 19
a and the routing table 19b have the same storage contents. For example, when data is relayed by IP (Internet Protocol) packets in the system of FIG. 1, the destination of the network to communicate with is shown in Table 1 below. An IP address and an IP address of a router that should relay data addressed to the network are held. However, the storage contents of both may be different immediately after the routing table 19b is dynamically updated, for example, when a specific route is disconnected or a new network is added.

[0016]

[Table 1]

Here, the normal "operational state" of the router 11, that is, the operation related to data relay will be described. Hereinafter, a case where data received from the LANa is relayed to the WAN will be described as an example.

First, when receiving the relay data from the LAN interface processing unit 16, the relay processing unit 15 refers to the routing table 19b in order to determine the relay destination router corresponding to the destination IP address of the received data. When the relay destination router is determined, the relay processing unit 15 transmits the data to an appropriate interface processing unit (WAN interface processing unit 17), and the WAN interface processing unit 17 transmits the data via the ISDN network 1. Relay to the determined destination router.

Next, the "routing information collecting state" of the router 11, that is, the collecting operation of the routing information will be described. First, when an administrator of the router issues a routing information collection instruction to the router 11 using the user interface processing unit 12, the user interface processing unit 12 sends a status to the route control management unit 13 according to the instruction. Notify transition instruction.

The route control manager 13 changes the internal operation state from the “operation state” to the “routing information collection state” based on the instruction, and instructs the path controller 14 to collect the routing information. At this time, the route control management unit 1
3 starts a timer for managing the transition time of the “routing information collection state”. Route control unit 14
Transmits a packet requesting routing information to each of the routers 21 to 51 by broadcast in accordance with the instruction from the path control management unit 13. The route control unit 14
When transmitting a routing information packet (IP: RIP (Routing Information Protocol)), the IP address of the router is transmitted as a source address (source address). In this case, the format of the RIP packet for transmitting the routing information is, as shown in FIG. 3, a destination including a MAC address and a source.
Ethernet MAC header having an address, followed by an IP header having a destination and source address consisting of an IP address, a UDP (User Datagram Protocol) header, a command indicating a request or response, and a destination IP address And a data section comprising the number of hops.

The adjacent router that has received the routing information request packet transmitted from the route control unit 14 transmits the routing information held in its own device as a response packet. In the router 11 that has received the response packet of the routing information, the path control unit 14 can rewrite the routing information in the packet, for example, the routing table 19b for each IP address and corresponding hardware address. Furthermore, the route control unit 14 can rewrite the routing table 19a based on the stored contents of the routing table 19b at the end of the “routing information collection state”. In this case, the path control unit 14 stores only the changed data from the routing table 19b so that only the changed contents are rewritten.
a or the routing table 19b
May be loaded into the routing table 19a.

When the monitored timer expires, the route control management unit 13 instructs the route control unit 14 to end the routing information collection processing, and changes the internal operation state to the “routing information collection state”. To the "operational state". As described above, in the present embodiment, when static routing is performed in a large-scale network using a pay-as-you-go network, the routing information is exchanged only when there is an artificial instruction from an administrator, and dynamically. Since the routing table is updated, the setting work of the network connection device can be reduced.

Further, in the router of this embodiment, the router enters a "routing information collection state" at the time of initial startup of the router, and the route control management section collects routing information using a dynamic routing control method, and after a predetermined time, It is also possible to set so that the collection of the routing information is terminated and the collected routing information is stored in the nonvolatile memory. Alternatively, in the router of the present embodiment, the routing information is stored in a non-volatile memory in advance by using a static routing control method, the router enters the “operational state” at the initial startup of the router, and the routing information is stored in the routing table. It is also possible to set to load.

In this embodiment, the other router that has received the routing information request packet may transmit all the routing information held in its own device as a response packet, or may have previously transmitted the routing information request packet. It is also possible to transmit only the routing information that has changed since the response was made as a response packet. As a result, the router that has requested the routing information can update all the information in the routing table, or can update only the changed information.

It is also possible to set a command so that an instruction of a routing information request from an administrator can specify transmission of the above two types of response packets.

[0026]

As described above, according to the present invention, a plurality of networks are connected by using an inter-network connecting device statically controlled on the basis of routing information for determining a data relay destination. In the inter-network connection method of performing data relay, the routing information, in response to an artificial instruction, temporarily switching from static routing control to dynamic routing control,
It is updated dynamically by exchanging routing information with other inter-network connection devices, reducing the work of setting up inter-network connection devices when performing static routing in a large-scale network using a pay-as-you-go network. it can.

Also, in the present invention, the routing control means updates the routing information in the nonvolatile storage means based on the routing information in the routing table, so that the latest routing information is stored in the nonvolatile storage means. It becomes possible.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an example of a system configuration using an inter-network connection method according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a configuration of a router illustrated in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing a format of a RIP packet according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ISDN line network 10 Terminal device 11-51 router 12 User interface processing part 13 Route control management part 14 Route control part 15 Relay processing part 16 LAN interface processing part 17 WAN interface processing part 18 Nonvolatile memory 19a, 19b Routing table 20 Volatilization Memory a-e LAN L1 transmission path

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An inter-network connection method for relaying data by connecting a plurality of networks using an inter-network connecting device statically routed and controlled based on routing information for determining a data relay destination. The routing information is dynamically updated by temporarily switching static routing control to dynamic routing control in accordance with an artificial instruction, exchanging routing information with another inter-network connecting device, and A method for connecting between networks, characterized in that: 2. The network connection method according to claim 1, wherein the routing information is updated in a nonvolatile storage unit in the network connection device. 3. Statically performing routing control based on routing information for determining a data relay destination,
In an inter-network connecting device that connects a plurality of networks and relays data, static routing control without exchanging the routing information with another inter-network connecting device, and routing with another inter-network connecting device temporarily. Routing control means for exchanging information and performing dynamic routing control for dynamically updating a routing table; and switching static routing control by the routing control means to dynamic routing control in response to an artificial instruction. An inter-network connection device comprising: routing switching control means. 4. The network connection device according to claim 3, wherein the routing information is updated in a non-volatile storage unit.