JP2000224179A - Network terminal device and communication method - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] For a network terminal device having a plurality of network interfaces, the type and lower address of a connected network can be determined by using a correspondence table of an upper address and a lower address and a network interface to be used. It is easy to create an application including communication between network terminal devices connected via a plurality of networks without being conscious. (1) In addition to a conventional function realizing unit, an address conversion processing unit and an address correspondence table are provided. (2) The packet is transmitted after the packet generating means has added the upper address and port identifier designated by the application processing means. (3) A common header generation unit and a non-common header generation unit are provided for the packet generation unit.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a network terminal device and a communication method using the network terminal device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional network terminal device, a lower (physical) address of a partner network terminal device must be selected according to a network to which the partner network terminal device with which communication is performed. It was necessary to consider not only the upper (logical) address of the terminal device but also the lower address.

As a method for solving this problem, a network connection method is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 6-332829.

In this method, an application has to manage only the logical address of the network terminal device with which the application communicates by having a correspondence table between the logical address and the physical address of the directly connected device. Further, by having a subnet configuration information table which is a correspondence table between a logical address of a device that is not directly connected and a physical address of a relaying router, a logical address can be similarly managed for a network terminal device that is not directly connected. You only have to do it.

[0005]

However, the above method cannot be applied to data communication over different networks because the network is specified. Also, regarding data transmission, since a network is specified, it is necessary to switch a network interface used by an application in order to perform transmission to a different network. As a result, the application also needs to manage the type of network to which another network terminal device is connected.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional example, and a destination network terminal device is connected when creating an application program including communication between network terminal devices connected via a plurality of networks. Provide an environment that enables data transmission without being aware of the type of network or lower address.

[0007]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention uses the following means.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the type of the corresponding network interface is added to the correspondence table between the upper address and the lower address of another network terminal device constituting the network.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the upper address is obtained from the lower address assigned to the packet received from the network and the received network interface using the correspondence table, and is passed to the application.

[0010] According to the third aspect of the present invention, an upper address is added to a packet to be transmitted to the network and the packet is transmitted.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, an upper address and an identifier of a port, an application, a processing method, and the like used by an upper application of the partner network terminal device are added to a packet to be transmitted to the network and transmitted.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, it is determined whether or not the upper address added to the data received from the network is its own upper address. If not, the network having the upper address according to the correspondence table is determined. Transfer to terminal device.

According to the present invention, in the packet header generation processing means corresponding to a plurality of networks, a part of a packet which is not common to the common header generation means for generating a packet header of a part common to each network. A non-common header generating means for generating a header is provided.

In the invention of claim 7, when data from one network is sent to another network, only the non-common part of the packet header is converted.

According to an eighth aspect of the present invention, in the above invention, one network is a wireless network such as an infrared ray and the other network is a wired network such as IEEE 1394.

According to a ninth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a communication method in a network terminal device connected to a mutually communicable network, comprising: an upper (logical) address and a lower (physical) address of another terminal constituting the network; And a correspondence table of a network interface to which the terminal is connected, in which an upper address given by the application is converted into a lower address and transmitted to the corresponding network.

In the present invention, the following operation is realized by the above-described configuration.

According to the configuration of the first aspect, the corresponding network is selected from the upper address specified by the application processing means, so that the application processing means transmits data without being aware of the network interface owned by the application processing means. It is possible to do.

According to the configuration of the second aspect, the application processing means can manage the received data by the upper address.

According to the configuration of the third aspect, it is possible to specify the transmission destination and the transmission source network terminal device by using the upper address regardless of the lower address or the connected network.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, it is possible to explicitly perform data communication with a network terminal device connected to a network having no address system by designating a port identifier. Becomes Further, depending on the correspondence of the port identifier, it becomes possible to control the processing of the application in the destination network terminal apparatus by the source network terminal apparatus.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, the application processing means of each network terminal device only assigns the higher-order address of the network terminal device to which transmission is to be performed. Data can be transmitted to a network terminal device that is not directly connected.

According to the configuration of claim 6, it is possible to reduce the processing of the packet generating means for a plurality of networks having the same packet header configuration.

According to the configuration of claim 7, the conversion process of the packet header when transferring data between network terminal devices connected to different networks is reduced.

According to the configuration of the eighth aspect, processing of an application involving data communication between a network terminal device having only a wireless network interface and a network terminal device having only a wired network interface is simplified.

[0026]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of a network according to the present invention. Network B
Interface only.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the network terminal device according to the present invention. The CPU 4 controls the device, the program memory 5 stores a program for controlling the device, and the work required when controlling the device. It has a RAM 6 used as a memory and a network interface 7. Each network terminal device in FIG. 1 has the device configuration of FIG. Although only one network interface is shown in FIG. 2, a plurality of interfaces for different networks may be provided in the present invention.

In the following description, the upper address is 1, 2,..., And the lower address of the network A is A
0, A1,..., The lower address of the network B is B
., The network terminal device 1 has only the network interface A, and the upper address 1, the network A
A0 as a lower address in the network terminal device 2, the network terminal device 2 has network interfaces A and B, an upper address 2, A1 as a lower address in the network A, and B as a lower address in the network B.
0, the network terminal device 3 has only the network interface B, and the description is made on the assumption that B1 is allocated as the upper address 3 and the lower address in the network B.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram showing a functional configuration of the network terminal device according to the present invention. The application processing means 8 performs an operation process of an upper application, and an address converter for converting an upper address into a corresponding network interface and a lower address. Means 9, an address correspondence table 10 storing correspondence between a network interface corresponding to an upper address and a lower address, packet generating means 11 for network A
a, a packet analyzer 12a, a network interface 13a, and a packet generator 11b for the network B, a packet analyzer 12b, and a network interface 13b.

Here, the application processing means 8, the address conversion means 9, the packet generation means 11a and the packet analysis means 12a of the network A, the packet generation means 11b and the packet analysis means 12b of the network B are shown in FIG.
Of the address correspondence table 10
Are stored in the RAM 6. The interface 13a to the network A and the interface 13b to the network B correspond to the network interface 7.

Each network terminal device 1 in FIG.
Each of the network terminals 2 and 3 has the same configuration as that shown in FIG. The terminal device 3 does not have the packet generation unit 11a, the packet analysis unit 12a, and the network interface 13a for the network A. Network terminal device 2
Are packet generating means 11a for network A,
It possesses both the packet analyzing means 12a, the network interface 13a, and both the packet generating means 11b for the network B, the packet analyzing means 12b, and the network interface 13b.

Claim 1 of the present invention relates to data transmission, and an embodiment thereof is described below, and a flow chart is shown in FIG.
Here, a case where the network terminal device 2 of FIG. 1 transmits data to the network terminal device 1 will be described as an example. In this example, the network is defined as two of A and B.
Although the description is given as types, the same applies to the case of three or more types.

The application processing means 8 creates data to be transmitted, and passes the data to be transmitted together with the upper address of the destination network terminal device to the address conversion means 9 (S1). Here, it is assumed that the upper address of the transmission destination is known in advance by the upper application by using a method such as automatic acquisition at the time of network connection, manual input, or determination as a fixed address.

The address conversion means 9 converts the upper address into a corresponding network interface and a lower address according to the address correspondence table 10 (S2), and based on the obtained network interface, sends the data to the packet generation means of the corresponding network. Hand over (S3).

FIG. 5 shows an example of the address correspondence table used here. In this example, the own address is also described, but the own address portion is not necessary if it is used only for data transmission. It is assumed that this correspondence table has been created in advance by automatic acquisition or manual input at the time of network connection.

In this example, it can be seen from the table of FIG. 5 that the destination network terminal device 1 is connected to the network A.
Pass the data to.

The network A packet generating means 11a generates a packet header to be used in the network, gives the lower address converted in step S2, and passes it to the network A interface 13a as a packet (S4). FIG. 6 shows an example of the packet created here. The packet is sent to the destination lower address (A
0), the source lower address (A1), and the application data, and are arranged in this order.

The network A interface 13a transmits the received packet to the network A (S5).

A second aspect of the present invention is an invention relating to data reception, an embodiment of which is shown below, and a flow chart is shown in FIG.
Here, a case where the network terminal device 2 of FIG. 1 receives data from the network terminal device 1 will be described as an example.

The packet received from the network interface is passed to the corresponding packet analysis means. Here, since the packet is from the network A, the packet is received from the network A interface 13a and passed to the packet analysis means 12a of the network A (S10).

The network A packet analysis means 12a analyzes the packet header of the received packet, and then converts the data contained in the packet, the lower address assigned to the packet, and the type of the received network interface into the address conversion means. 9 (S1
1).

The address conversion means 9 acquires an upper address from the network interface and the lower address received from the address correspondence table 10 as shown in FIG. 5, and transfers the upper address and the received data to the application processing means 8 (S12).

The application processing means manages the upper address and performs processing according to the received data (S
13).

According to a third aspect of the present invention, the packet generating means assigns an upper address specified by the application processing means to the packet.

The processing example at the time of data transmission is the same as that of FIG.
Then, in addition to the transmission data, an upper address of the destination network terminal device is specified. In step S4, the packet generating means 11 also assigns the specified upper address to the packet.
To send out the packet via. An example of a packet generated when data is transmitted from the network terminal device 2 to the network terminal device 1 is as shown in FIG. In FIG. 8, the destination lower address (A0), the source lower address (A1), the destination upper address (1), the source upper address (2), and the application data are arranged in this order. This order is not fixed and can be changed arbitrarily.

An example of processing at the time of data reception is the same as in FIG. 7, and the upper address is passed to the application processing means 8 together with the data. Step S in FIG.
The process 12 may be omitted if it is only for calculating the upper address, but may be provided for error detection of data by comparing the assigned upper address with the converted upper address.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the packet generating means assigns an upper address and a port identifier designated by the application processing means to the packet. Here, the port identifier is an identifier used by the application processing means of each network terminal device, and is provided as an identifier of a network interface owned by the device. For example, when a port identifier is assigned to each network interface in the example of the network configuration in FIG. 1, the result is as shown in FIG. In this example,
In network terminal device 2, port 1 is network A
For the interface, port 2 is assigned to the network B interface. The same applies to the network interfaces 1 and 3.

The processing example at the time of data transmission is the same as that of FIG.
Then, in addition to the transmission data, an upper address and a port identifier of the transmission destination network terminal device are specified. In step S4, the specified upper address and the port identifier are added to the packet by the packet generation means 11, and the Packets are sent out. An example of a packet generated when data is transmitted from the network terminal device 1 to the port 2 of the network terminal device 2 is as shown in FIG. FIG.
Are arranged in the order of destination lower address (A1), source lower address (A0), destination upper address (2), source port identifier (a), source upper address (1), and application data. . This order is not fixed and can be changed arbitrarily. In this example, the port identifier is assigned only to the destination network terminal device, but the same applies when the port identifier of the source network terminal device is specified.

The processing example at the time of data reception is the same as that of FIG. 7, and the upper address and port identifier are passed to the application processing means 8 together with the data.

The application processing means 7 transfers the received data to the network interface corresponding to the port identifier. In this example, the application processing means 8 of the network terminal device 2 transmits the received data to the network B interface as it is.

This embodiment is particularly effective when the communication protocol on the network B is a protocol specialized for one-to-one communication having no address system or the like. In this case, originally only the data of the network terminal device 2 can be transmitted to the network terminal device 3, but by specifying the port 2 of the network terminal device 2 by the above-described method, the network terminal device 1 can explicitly transmit the data to the network terminal device 3. It is possible to transmit data.

In the above example, the description has been made assuming that the port identifier corresponds to the network interface. However, the port identifier may be associated as an identifier of an application or a processing method. in this case,
It is possible to change an application that passes data by a port identifier, and to change a data processing method in one application by a port identifier.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, it is determined whether or not a received packet is addressed to itself, and if not, the packet is forwarded according to the address correspondence table.

The address correspondence tables of the network terminals 1, 2, and 3 in this case are shown in FIGS.
2, shown in FIG. In FIG. 11, when the network terminal device 1 transmits data to the network terminal device 3, the device having the lower address A0 of the network A,
That is, it is described that data is transmitted to the network terminal device 2. Similarly, in FIG. 13, the network terminal device 3 transmits data to the network terminal device 2 when transmitting data to the network terminal device 1. It is described in.

The network terminal 1 transmits data to the network terminal 3 having the upper address 3 according to the data transmission procedure described above. The address conversion means of the network terminal device 1 selects the network interface and the lower address according to the address correspondence table of FIG. 11, so that the packet generated here is as shown in FIG. 14, and this packet is transmitted to the network terminal device 2. Is done. In FIG. 14, the destination lower address (A1), the source lower address (A0), the destination upper address (3), the source upper address (1), and the application data are arranged in this order. This order is not fixed and can be changed arbitrarily.

The network terminal device 2 receives the packet shown in FIG. FIG. 15 shows a flowchart in this case.

The network A interface 13a passes the received packet to the packet analyzing means 12a (S20). The network A packet analyzing means 12a analyzes the packet (S21), checks the upper address, and determines whether the address is addressed to itself (S22).

If the upper address of the transmission destination is addressed to itself, the address is converted by the address conversion means (S23), and the data is transferred to the application processing means 8 (S24). If it is not addressed to itself, the data is transferred to the destination upper address. The data transfer procedure is the same as the data transmission procedure described above (S25).

Here, since the packet of FIG. 14 is received, the destination upper address is 3. However, since the own address of the network terminal device 2 is 2, the transfer process starts. In the data transmission procedure, this data is transmitted to the network terminal device having the lower address B1 of the network B, that is, the network terminal device 3 according to the address correspondence table of the network terminal device 2 shown in FIG.

The network terminal device 3 performs the same reception processing as that of FIG. 15, but the destination upper address of the received packet is 3 and its own upper address is also 3. Therefore, the determination in S22 is made. The data is passed to the application processing means.

According to claim 6 of the present invention, the packet generating means 11 provided for each network interface
Instead of a and 11b, a common header generating means for generating a common header in each network and a non-common header generating means for generating a non-common header are provided. FIG. 16 shows a functional block diagram in this case.

In this embodiment, the header of the common part is first generated by the common header generation means 14 and then the non-common header generation means 15a, 15b
, A non-common header is generated for each network.

In the above-mentioned packet example, the networks A and B have the same packet format for the sake of simplicity of description. However, actually, a sequence number is added and a field indicating the length of data is provided. The format of the packet differs for each network. Here, the description will be made with reference to FIG. 17 as an example of a packet format defined in the network A and FIG. 18 as an example of a packet format defined in the network B.

In the above-described embodiment, packet generation at the time of data transmission uses the packet generation means 11a and 11b provided for each network. In this embodiment, first, the common header generation means 14 uses Is generated. In the examples of FIGS. 17 and 18, since the formats of the destination lower address, the source lower address, the destination upper address, the source upper address, and the application data field are the same, only the header for this part is generated. After that, if the packet is addressed to the network A by the non-common header generating means 15a, 15b corresponding to the selected network, the network identifier and the data length are transmitted to the network B.
If it is a packet addressed to it, a data length and a sequence number are added.

In the implementation, the non-common header generating means 15a and 15b are created as the same module,
The network at the time of generating the non-common header may be distinguished by a flag or the like.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, at the time of data transfer, only the non-common header portion is changed and transferred. For example, FIG. 17 received from the network A interface 13a
Is transferred to the network B interface 13b, the packet to the network B is generated by deleting the network identifier and the data length in FIG. 17 and adding the data length and the sequence number in FIG.

In the present invention, the network A is connected to the IR
139, a wireless communication network such as
A network terminal device as a priority communication network such as No. 4 was provided. As a configuration example of a network using such a network terminal device, consider a network system as shown in FIG. In this example, the remote controller-T
A wireless network is connected between V and a wired network is connected between TV and stereo, and the TV functions as a network terminal device having two networks. In this network, data transmission / reception is performed by the method of the embodiment described above. If 1, 2, and 3 are assigned to the remote controller, TV, and stereo in advance as upper addresses, when control data is transmitted from the remote controller to the TV, the upper address 2 of the TV is specified as a transmission destination, and control is performed from the remote controller to the stereo. When transmitting data, the upper address 3 is specified as a transmission destination. In data transmission from a TV or a stereo to the remote controller, the upper address 1 of the remote controller is designated as a transmission destination.

In the case of such a network configuration, by using the present invention, the power of the stereo is turned on and the input is switched from the remote control, and then the TV is instructed to turn on the power and output sound to the stereo. To output TV sound to stereo by doing
Since the same communication can be made to both the TV and the stereo connected via the TV only by changing the upper address, the remote control application does not need to be aware of the difference in the network or connection form, and the application can be easily executed. The description can be made.

[0069]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a correspondence table of upper and lower addresses of other terminals constituting the network, and a network interface to which the terminal is connected. By converting the data to a lower address and sending it to the corresponding network, the corresponding network is selected from the upper address specified by the application processing means. Transmission can be performed.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the lower address received from the network is converted into the upper address and returned to the application, so that the application processing means can manage the received data with the upper address.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, when data is sent to a network, an upper address is also added and sent, so that the upper address becomes the destination and the source of the data regardless of the lower address and the connected network. Of the network terminal device can be designated.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, when sending data to the network, in addition to the upper address, the port identifier used by the upper application of the partner network terminal device is added and sent, so that the address system can be controlled. It is also possible to explicitly perform data communication with a network terminal device connected to a network that does not have a network. Further, depending on the correspondence of the port identifier, it becomes possible to control the processing of the application in the destination network terminal apparatus by the source network terminal apparatus.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, it is determined whether or not the upper address added to the data received from the network is its own upper address. Otherwise, the upper address is converted to a lower address according to the correspondence table held by the user and transmitted to the corresponding network, so that the application processing means of each network terminal device assigns the upper address of the network terminal device to which transmission is desired. By simply storing the data, it becomes possible to transmit data to the directly connected network terminal device and to the non-directly connected network terminal device.

According to the sixth aspect of the present invention, the packet header generating means corresponding to a plurality of networks generates similar portions by generating portions common to the respective networks and portions not common to the respective networks. It is possible to reduce the processing of the packet generation means for a plurality of networks having the packet header configuration.

According to the seventh aspect of the present invention, when transmitting data from one network to another network, only the non-common portions of the respective network headers are converted, so that the network terminals connected to different networks are converted. The conversion process of the packet header when transferring data between the devices is reduced.

According to the eighth aspect of the present invention, when one of the networks is a wireless communication network such as an infrared ray and the other network is a wired communication network such as IEEE 1394, the network communication with a network terminal apparatus having only a wireless communication network interface is performed. Application processing involving data communication with a network terminal device having only a network interface can be easily performed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration example of a network described in the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a network communication device described in the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram showing a functional configuration of a network communication device described in the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a data transmission process described in claim 1 of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an example of an address correspondence table described in the present invention.

FIG. 6 is an example of a communication packet described in the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a data receiving process described in claim 2 of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is an example of a communication packet described in claim 3 of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a configuration example of a network described in claim 4 of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is an example of a communication packet described in claim 4 of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is an example of an address correspondence table described in claim 5 of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is an example of an address correspondence table described in claim 5 of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is an example of an address correspondence table described in claim 5 of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is an example of a communication packet described in claim 5 of the present invention.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart of a data receiving process described in claim 5 of the present invention.

FIG. 16 is a functional block diagram showing a functional configuration of a network communication device according to claim 6 of the present invention.

FIG. 17 is an example of a communication packet described in claim 7 of the present invention.

FIG. 18 is an example of a communication packet described in claim 7 of the present invention.

FIG. 19 is a configuration example of a network described in claim 8 of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1, 2, 3 network communication terminal 8 application processing means 9 address conversion means 10 address correspondence table 11a, 11b packet generation means 12a, 12b packet analysis means 13a, 13b network interface 14 common header generation means 15 non-common header generation means

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Akinobu Fujii 22-22 Nagaikecho, Abeno-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka F-term (reference) 5B089 GA21 GB01 HA10 HB18 HB19 KA03 KA04 KA10 KB06 KC27 KC37 KC47 KH03 5K030 HA08 HC14 JT02 KA05 KA15 5K033 CB08 CB11 CC01 9A001 BB04 CC03 CC05 DD10 JJ12 KK56

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. A network terminal device connected to a mutually communicable network, wherein upper (logical) and lower (physical) addresses of other network terminal devices constituting the network and the network terminal device are A network terminal device having a correspondence table of connected networks, and having a function of converting an upper address given by an application into a lower address and sending the converted address to a corresponding network. 2. The network terminal device according to claim 1, further comprising a function of converting a lower address assigned to a packet received from the network into an upper address and returning it to an application. 3. The network terminal device according to claim 1, further comprising a function of adding a higher address to a packet to be transmitted to a network and transmitting the packet. 4. A port, an application, and a port used by a higher-level application of a partner network terminal device, in addition to a higher-level address in a packet to be transmitted to the network.
4. The network terminal device according to claim 1, further comprising a function of adding an identifier such as a processing method and transmitting the identifier. 5. Determine whether the upper address added to the packet received from the network is its own upper address, and pass the data to the application if it is itself; 5. The network terminal device according to claim 1, further comprising a function of converting the address into a lower address in accordance with a correspondence table owned by the terminal and transmitting the converted address to a corresponding network. 6. A packet header generating means corresponding to a plurality of networks, wherein the packet header generating means has a function of generating a portion common to each network and a portion not common to each network. The network terminal device according to any one of the above. 7. A network terminal device having a plurality of network interfaces, wherein when transmitting data from one network to another network, the network terminal device has a function of converting only a non-common portion of each network header. Claims 1 to 6
The network terminal device according to any one of the above. 8. The network terminal device according to claim 1, wherein one of the networks is a wireless communication network such as an infrared ray, and the other network is a wired communication network such as IEEE 1394. 9. A communication method in a network terminal device connected to a mutually communicable network, comprising: an upper (logical) address and a lower (physical) address of another terminal constituting the network; With a corresponding table of network interfaces
A communication method characterized in that an upper address assigned by an application is converted into a lower address and transmitted to a corresponding network.