SYSTEM FOR NETWORK DEVICE LOCATION

• US 20020062366A1
• Filed: 11/25/1998
• Published: 05/23/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 11/25/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Majandro LLC (IP Edge LLC)
• Original Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: TARR, STEPHEN F., ROY, JOYDEEP
• Granted Patent: US 6,496,859 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies

Abstract

A managment station responds to an HTTP request for device discovery by spawning a device discovery task that creates a linked list and first broadcasts UDP based requests out on a subnetwork for devices on the same subnetwork to respond. Device information from responding network devices is stored in a linked list. This process is repeated until a specified length of time has expired. Then a second broadcast request is sent out that includes a list of printers that have responded so that they will nor keep responding. The list is updated by responses until there are no more responses. Any nodes in the linked list that still only have a network address are upadated by sending a unicast SNMP request those network addresses in order to get the additional information. The data from the linked list is sent back to the HTTP client.

Claims

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein the step of sending a first broadcast request out on a network comprises:

sending SNMP broadcast requests for network devices to respond;

waiting for a specified period of time for responses.

3. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of discarding responses from network devices that are not in a specified class.

4. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of repeating the sending a first broadcast request out on a network step and the adding to a list of network addresses step until a specified period of time has expired.

5. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of copying into the list of network addresses at least one of the following:

device name, status, model, and version, corresponding to a network address of a device in the list.

9. The method according to claim 5 further comprising the step of:

delivering the list in HTML format to an HTTP client in response to an HTTP request for such information.

6. The method according to claim 1 wherein the request sent in the sending a second broadcast request step has a value before each network address in the list of network addresses indicating the length of each network address.

7. The method according to claim 1 wherein the responses from network devices have a MAC address as well as an IP address of the responding network device.

8. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of:

delivering the list in HTML format to an HTTP client in response to an HTTP request for such information.

10. A network protocol of requests and responses between a network management station and network devices for network device location comprising:

a network packet section of a request packet allocated for indicating network addresses of responding network devices;

a network packet section of the request packet allocated before each network address packet section of the request packet for indicating a length of each network address in the request packet.

a network packet section of a response packet to the request packet allocated for indicating a MAC address as well as an IP network address of a responding network device.

11. A system for network device location on a computer sub-network comprising:

a first device for sending a first broadcast request out on a network for network devices to respond;

means in the first device for adding addresses of devices that respond to the first broadcast request to a list of network addresses;

means in the first device for sending a second broadcast request out on the network, wherein the second broadcast request has the list of network addresses that have previously responded such that only those not on the list will respond; and

means in the first device for repeating the function of the previous two devices until there are no more responses from network devices.

12. The system according to claim 11 wherein the first device for sending a first broadcast request out on a network comprises:

means in the first device for sending SNMP broadcast requests for network devices to respond;

means in the first device for waiting for a specified period of time for responses.

13. The system according to claim 11 further comprising means in the first device for discarding responses from network devices that are not in a specified class.

14. The system according to claim 11 further comprising means in the first device for repeating the functions of the sending a first broadcast request out on a network device and the adding to a list of network addresses device until a specified period of time has expired.

15. The system according to claim 11 further comprising means in the first device for copying into the list of network addresses at least one of the following:

device name, status, model, and version, corresponding to a network address of a device in the list;

16. The system according to claim 11 wherein the request sent by the means for sending a second broadcast request has a value before each network address in the list of network addresses indicating the length of each network address.

17. The system according to claim 11 wherein the responses from network devices have a MAC address and/or an IP address of the responding network device.

18. The system according to claim 11 further comprising a second device for sending out an HTTP request for a list of network addresses.

19. The system according to claim 18 further comprising means in the first device for delivering the list in HTML format to the second device in response to the HTTP request for such information.

20. The system according to claim 15 further comprising means in the first device for delivering the list in HTML format to an HTTP client in response to an HTTP request for such information.

21. A method for network device location comprising the steps of:

sending a broadcast request out to each device on a network for network devices to respond;

receiving a reply identifying a replying device;

selecting an IP address for the replying device;

assigning the IP address to the replying device;

adding to a list of network MAC addresses, addresses of the replying devices.