Methods And Systems For Non-Intrusive Debug Processing Of Network Frames

Methods and systems are disclosed for non-intrusive debug processing of network frames. For certain embodiments, a frame parser processes frames from a network interface and generates frame metadata. A key generation engine processes each frame and its related metadata to generate a normal key and a debug key. The same key composition rule formats and key generation engine are used to generate the normal key and the debug key to provide non-intrusive debug processing. Frame classification logic compares the normal key to classification tables to determine a frame classification for the received frame. Separate debug comparison logic compares the debug key to debug reference data/masks to generate debug markers for the received frame. The frame classification and the debug markers for each frame are provided to frame marking logic, and a frame processing engine then processes the resulting marked/classified frames.