5.7 Summary

Tables are used throughout communications software. Tables for management can be constructed out of the standard MIBs for the various protocols and system functions. The Control Block (CB) is the anchor block for a protocol. There is one CB per protocol. The Interface Control Block (ICB) is the per-interface anchor block. There is a Hardware ICB (HICB) per physical port and a Protocol ICB (PICB) for each logical interface for a protocol.

It is best to allocate memory for tables at startup. The allocation can be array or linked list based. To speed up access, efficient table organization and access, hardware support, and caching can be used. Resizing of tables is discouraged. Developers should use table access routines instead of accessing global tables via pointers.