research log (last update 2004/11/10)

Research log (last update 2004/11/10)

Yao-Chung Chang

Half-year Plan

Task Subtask10/15

10/29

11/12

11/26

12/17

12/31

1/14

1/28

2/11

2/25

Finish Date

thesis Performance analysis of each component of IDS

★ ★ ★ 11/15

Improving an existing string matching algorithm for NP

★ ★ ★ 11/15

Implementation ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/15

Simulation and performance tuning

★ ★ 2/15

course SOC & verilog study ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Weekly Plan (2004/11/8) Plan for last week

Discussing with Yi-Neng about the new architecture Preparing for the midterm exam

Plan for this week Arranging the slides Soc lab of microblaze Fooling around

Notes Finally, after converging the issues of my thesis in the rese

arch meeting last week, I’ve had a bit of assurance. In this week, I plan to think about the problem that whether fragmentation is necessary and arrange the slides as well.


Implementation and simulation of simple receive-process-transmit model on IXP 2400

SoC lab & verilog learning Plan for this week

Design the dispatcher for pool of threads SoC lab & verilog learning

Notes After discussion with Yi-Neng, the dispatcher is going to b

e shaped up. I have to well describe the algorithm of the dispatcher and meanwhile arrange the chapters that would be in my thesis. Regards 國防役 , I’ve decide to apply for entering the IRTI, so that I can have a regular life and time for learning interesting stuff.


Modify existing string matching algorithm for IXP 2400 ACA study SoC lab & verilog learning Writing resume for 國防役

Plan for this week Implementation and simulation of simple receive-process-transmit mod

el on IXP 2400 SoC lab & verilog learning

Notes In order to observe the behavior of aho-coraisck algorithm on network p

rocessor, I’ve started to modify existing sample codes, say receive, count and transmit. It’s a hard work nonetheless. Besides understanding the hardware specification for further development, I need to design a mechanism, say a dispatcher, for handling flows by assigning threads from pool of threads. Suddenly, I feel the days passed quickly, as regards research, I have to pull my weight as possible as I can.


Converge the results of discussion List the hardware feature of IXP 2400 Book reading

Plan for this week Modify existing string matching algorithm for IXP 2400 ACA study SoC lab & verilog learning Writing resume for 國防役

Notes In this week, I get started implementing aho-corasic algorithm o

n IXP 2400. After discussion with Yi-Neng in last week, I decide to focus on how to take advantage of hardware feature in order to speed up the aho-corasic algorithm. Meanwhile, I’ll try to get familiar with the development environment as soon as possible.

Weekly Plan (2004/09/20) Plan for this week

Book reading The GUI of Wall

Notes Lately, a new semester has been

beginning. In this week, I plan to concentrate on the research besides all the chores, say Wall GUI. In regard to wall GUI, there are still many parts needed to be done, and hope I can “terminate” it as soon as I can.


Reading IXP2400/2800 Programming Guide Defining the architecture as well as the criteria of threads

and microengines allocation Excellent project demo

Plan for this week Giving a presentation of thesis proposal The GUI of Wall

Notes The group meeting this week is a show time for me to give

a presentation of proposal, though there are many ideas I need to make them more concrete. In this week, I plan to discuss with my mentor, Yi-Neng, about the guidelines of thread and microengine allocation, so that I can make my proposal more logical and reasonable.


Reading IXP2400/2800 Programming Guide Understating how packet inspection is done in Snort

Plan for this week Reading IXP2400/2800 Programming Guide Defining the architecture as well as the criteria of threads

and microengines allocation Excellent project demo

Notes In this week, there is a demonstration of excellent project

in T.W.T.C. Besides I have to define the architecture as well as the criteria of threads and microengines allocation. Gradually, I’ve felt it’s not easy to finish my thesis, however, I’ll do my best and try to be well-organized.


Reading IXP2400/2800 Programming Guide Source code reading of Snort

Plan for this week Reading IXP2400/2800 Programming Guide Understating how packet inspection is done in Snort

Notes Earlier this month, I’ve read several papers about

implementation of IDS on network processors. But in vain, lots of details are still unknown. Although I’ve pointed out the most important parts of Snort, but how packet inspection is done is needed to find out in this week.


Thesis pre-study Plan for this week

Reading IXP2400/2800 Programming Guide Source code reading of Snort

Notes As regards to thesis pre-study, I’ve decide to

concentrate on IDS. Therefore, I can analyze the critical parts of Snort, say memory and computation intensive, and off-load them to the micro-engines. In long term, I’ll try to think an elegant way to allocate resource on IXP2400. Hope I can propose a workable proposal in the end of summer vocation.

Weekly Plan (2004/07/26) (1/3) Plan for last week

Test the functionality of freeswan and tc Thesis pre-study

Plan for this week Thesis pre-study

Notes – two aspects Research

Last week, I’ve discussed with my mentor, Yi-Neng, and talked about the parallelism of Aho-Chorasick on NPs. In this week, I must extend the idea derived from someone’s paper, and meanwhile answering the following questions.

Weekly Plan (2004/07/26) (2/3)

Why not let threads themselves pick up the next unprocessed slots ?

MErx

new

MEac

t0 t1

MEac MEac

t2 t3 t8 t9

being processed unprocessed threshold

When (TL/R) <= A(B-T),buffer overflow occurs….

Weekly Plan (2004/07/26) (3/3)

How to inspect interleaving packets belong to different flows?

Development Set up the development environment of

IXP2400.

MEac

t0t1

t0t1

TIME B

TIME A

Pattern 2

packet 1 packet 2 packet 3

Weekly Plan (2004/07/19) Plan for this week

Test the functionality of freeswan and tc Thesis pre-study

Notes A brand-new semester is coming up; I need to s

pend much time on thesis pre-study and practicing my English writing. In this week, I should find out the answer to the question about the parallelism of Aho-Corasick on network processors, and also improve my weakness on this domain.


Preparing for the final exam of formal language sw/hw co-design final project Network experiments

Plan for this week Preparing for the presentation of thesis pre-study sw/hw co-design final project Network experiments

Notes I’m tied up in this week, because there are many things t

o do. Although it’s great that the summer vocation is beginning, I still need to finish the sw/hw co-design final project and pass the network experiment final exam. God bless me!


Preparing for the final exam of formal language sw/hw co-design final project Network experiments

Plan for this week Preparing for the final exam of formal language sw/hw co-design final project Network experiments

Notes Soon, I’m going to be a graduate student in the second year. It

implies I should concentrate on my thesis and plan well for the upcoming new semester. Although it’ll be a hard time to go through, it’s worthwhile. By the way, I wish the 2nd-year graduates will have a good time in their future career. Hey, Y.C, don’t be fool around, just keep your eyes on your target!!


Studying formal language sw/hw co-design final project Testing functionality of Wall

Plan for this week Preparing for the final exam of formal language sw/hw co-design final project Network experiments

Notes There are many jobs coming up in this week. I have to gear up fo

r the sw/hw co-design final project, which is a VPN gateway with a DES accelerator. So far, I have verified the DES IP core from opencores.org, and it still needs to be integrated with the MCU interface, though. Besides, I’ll concentrate myself on the final exam of formal language. Hope I can pass through this busy week!


Studying formal language Learning VHDL

Plan for this week Studying formal language sw/hw co-design final project Testing functionality of Wall

Notes Unfortunately, we failed in the contest of MOE. No matter

what results were, we still need to gear up and prepare for the next time. In this week, I’ll make sure that the functionality of Wall can work, and studying is required as well.


Studying formal language Learning VHDL

Plan for this week Studying formal language Learning VHDL

Notes Soon, A new week begins, I should gear up

and prepare for the mid-term exam right off the bat.


Computer network experiments Building Wall image Studying formal language Learning VHDL

Plan for this week Studying formal language Learning VHDL

Notes It’s time to finish the Wall work in this week, and I have to finis

h my embedded lab before Friday. In last week, I have learned much about the bus interface between ARM and FPGA, and I am supposed to keep on designing a pi accelerator. About the idea of thesis, I have talked to Yi-Neng and Kuo-Kuan, and they gave me some comments and some topics. As a result, I am getting understood what can I do about my thesis.


Computer network experiments Embedded firmware hands-on – MPEG4 decoder Building snapgear image Studying formal language

Plan for this week Computer network experiments Building Wall image Studying formal language Learning VHDL

Notes Without exception, I intend to finish some school assignments this week,

among which is a pi accelerator, and it seems a hard work. Therefore I need to study hard to increase my muscle in the domain, and meanwhile think about what can I do about my thesis. By the way, I am getting tired of studying everyday, perhaps I need to take a rest, say go traveling, and appreciate the beauty of nature, blah blah. Sometimes I always think I am not good enough, and very disappointed, hope I can pass through my bad mood in this week.


Doing computer network experiments Embedded hands-on

Plan for this week Computer network experiments Embedded firmware hands-on – MPEG4 decoder Building snapgear image Studying formal language

Notes I have tried hard to help Szu-Hao to integrate perl, but unf

ortunately there are still many problems which I need to solve in this week. Besides, I’ll spend lots of time doing a lab of MPEG4 decoder on ecos. Hope I can pass through this busy week!


Doing computer network experiments Learning VHDL

Plan for this week Doing computer network experiments Embedded hands-on

Notes There are many upcoming works to do, say

network experiments, embedded team project, besides I need to build a workable image for the wall.


Building uclinux kernel and integrate filesystem for testing

Doing computer network experiments Learning VHDL

Plan for this week Doing computer network experiments Learning VHDL

Notes In Last week, I have tried to install SnapGear, the embbed

ed linux distribution, and see what’s going on inside. I found SnapGear is really a nice distribution, which includes the functionalities we want, say VPN. Besides, it provides a user-friendly configurable menu, so that we can choose many alternatives without much effort. Hence, I think we can try it.


Preparing for the exam Plan for this week

Building uclinux kernel and integrate filesystem for testing Doing computer network experiments Learning VHDL

Notes Finally, the midterm exam is over, and I have to spend mor

e time on wall project and learning VHDL. My short-term goal is to learn how to design an ASIC, say a simple CRC ASIC, so that it can co-work with the ARM core and offload the overhead of network processing. Moreover, I’ll try to write a simple flash utility which is my hobby. Here, I would like to appreciate my dad that he supports the equipments.


Embedded hardware-and-software co-design hands on

Computer network experiments Plan for this week

Preparing for the exam

Notes In this week, I’ll focus on formal language.

Although I have tried to study hard, I think this course is not easy to get high grade. Any way, I’ll do as best as I can.


Surveying embedded Linux variants and preparing for the presentation

Learning VHDL Book reading

Plan for this week Embedded hardware-and-software co-design hands on Computer network experiments

Notes In this week, there are many jobs to do. Although I have tried to

build a uClinux distribution from the scratch successfully, I need to find a systematic way for us to develop the new wall. Besides, I’ll spend much time porting the uHAL used both in ARM boot monitor and Angel debug monitor, thus I can write a BSL module for the Lab 3 of the embedded hardware-and-software co-design course. By the way, the midterm exam is coming, and I should gear up for the exam.


Embedded hardware-and-software co-design hands on Learning VHDL Book reading

Plan for this week Surveying embedded Linux variants and preparing for the

presentation Learning VHDL Book reading

Notes Recently, I have been aware of the important of English

conversation since I feel that I am poor in conversation when talking to a foreigner, besides writing skill is needed to be improved as well. In this week, my plan is as usual, as regards the wall plan, I have to spend much time preparing for the presentation coming up next week.


Trying to install Linux on ARM platform Book reading

Plan for this week Embedded hardware-and-software co-design hands on Learning VHDL Book reading

Notes In this semester, I take the course, called formal language,

and I have found that it’s a good training for my logic reasoning. Also, it inspires me to understand the problem statements, and try to solve and prove them. As far as embedded course is concerned, it always interests me. From the lab of last homework, I have learned how to do profiling and code optimization on embedded software, and the lab in this week will be a piece of cake that asks us to write a timer interrupt handler in ARM assembly language. Hoping I will learn much from the experience!


Tracing the makefile of the new wall Book reading

Plan for this week Trying to install Linux on ARM platform Book reading

Notes Since we have considered to migrate our new wall to the

Linux operating system, I have to survey which variant of Linux is suitable for embedded system, of course, uClinux is the best choice. In this week, I plan to spend much time focusing on VHDL, which will be used as the HDL for hardware-and-software codesign, as a result, it’ll be helpful for my direction of theses.


Keeping on porting the new wall to ARM platform Book reading

Plan for this week Tracing the makefile of the new wall Book reading

Notes Before starting porting applications to the new platform, t

here are some stuffs I need to know, say what parts of the kernel are patched, makefile rules and so on. Besides, I need to make sure the original modification can be applied to the new one, because there are many differences between NetBSD 1.5 and NetBSD 1.6. By the way, I think it is a big function, and hope I can finish the job as soon as I can.


Preparing for the paper presentation Plan for this week

Keeping on porting the new wall to ARM platform Book reading

Notes Finally, I have finished my presentation about the system

research paper, although I didn’t perform very well, I’ll do my best in the next show time. In this semester, I’ll take the course, called “hardware and software co-desgin”, talking about how to design and program your own ASIC. From the courses, I think I can learn much and make my muscle stronger.


Building the development environment for Wall on ARM platform

Paper reading Plan for this week

Preparing for the paper presentation Notes

As far as porting is concerned, I have found a DBPXA250 emulator called Virtex, therefore, I can do anything on the platform as same as the real one. Soon, it’s the beginning of a new semester, and many courses are very interesting and challenging. Hope I can learn much from them.


Fixing antivirus and antispam functionality Paper reading

Plan for this week Building the development environment for Wall on ARM platfor

m Paper reading

Notes Last week, we spent lots of time finding the problem of anti-spa

m, finally the problem was solved. However, the machine running the Wall has many hardware problems, say network interface timeout, and I suggest that we should buy new machines.

In this week, I have to try to run NetBSD on Intel DBPX250 platform, and think how to port the original source tree to the new platform without many changes.


Helping Chih-Wei to solve the problem of spamassasin Setup the environment of computer network mini-porject Preparing for the final exam of computer network

Plan for this week Fixing antivirus and antispam functionality Paper reading

Notes In this week, I have to solve the problem of antispam, sinc

e there are some subtle problems when doing package integration. As far as thesis issues are concerned, ASIC design is a work of art for me, and I need to make an effort to learn as much as I can.


Helping Chih-Wei to solve the problem of spamassasin Setup the environment of computer network mini-porject Preparing for the final exam of computer network

Plan for this week Computer network mini-porject testing

Notes Woo hoo! Finally, the semester has ended, and it’s wort

h to take a rest. In this week, I have to finish the testing of computer network mini-project, besides a system research paper reading is required. Hope I can find my topic of thesis as soon as possible.


Preparing for the final exam Preparing for the computer network mini-project

Plan for this week Helping Chih-Wei to solve the problem of spamassasin Setup the environment of computer network mini-porject Preparing for the final exam of computer network

Notes Last week, we have encountered some problems about th

e anti-spam functionality caused by spamassasin, which evaluates every mail as a result of the score, zero, and we are still trying hard to solve the problem. In this week, there are many reports and exams, and hope I can pass in all courses.

research log (last update 2004/11/10)

Documents

midterm exam plan

week implementation

hardware feature of

ahocorasic algorithm

soc lab verilog learningplan

coraisck algorithm

wall gui

research meeting