Process and apparatus for performing an automatic discovery of the topology and devices of an Intranet network
First Claim
1. Process for automatically discovering the topology and components of an Intranet network, comprising at least one sub network (70. . .), to which are attached devices (1, 2, . . .) complying with TCP/IP protocol, said process running into one particular device (7) being assigned an IP address and comprising the steps of:
- computing a set of sub network configurations to which the IP address of the device could belong;
using the ICMP layer of said TCP/IP protocol for successively testing and validating said configurations for the purpose of elaborating an extensive description of the network architecture.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A process and apparatus for automatically discovering the topology and components of an intranet network comprising at least one sub network to which are attached a set of devices complying with the TCP/IP protocol. The invention takes advantage of the existence of the ICMP layer existing in the TCP/IP layer for the purpose of determining the sub network of a given device. Once the sub network has been determined, as well as the subnet mask, the process determines the other sub networks which may co-exist within the Intranet. This is achieved by means of a computation of different sub network configurations, and for each configuration, the process successively generates and transmits ICMP requests to two different broadcast addresses, the answers of which being used for testing and validating the different configuration and the subnet masks.
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Citations
16 Claims
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1. Process for automatically discovering the topology and components of an Intranet network, comprising at least one sub network (70. . .), to which are attached devices (1, 2, . . .) complying with TCP/IP protocol, said process running into one particular device (7) being assigned an IP address and comprising the steps of:
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computing a set of sub network configurations to which the IP address of the device could belong;
using the ICMP layer of said TCP/IP protocol for successively testing and validating said configurations for the purpose of elaborating an extensive description of the network architecture. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 15, 16)
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9. Process for discovering the sub network of an Intranet network to which is attached a pluggable device (7), characterized in that said process involves the steps of:
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a) initiating (210) a self IP detection step for the purpose of detecting an IP address;
b) computing (220) a first value representative of a first subnet mask (“
/n”
) comprising a prefix with n logical “
1”
, said first subnet mask corresponding to a first sub network to which is likely to belong said IP address;
c) computing (230) for said value a first and second broadcast addresses (BC1;
BC2);
d) transmitting (240) an ICMP Echo Request to said first and second broadcast addresses (BC1, BC2);
e) in response to a positive answer received to both said first and second broadcast addresses (BC1, BC2), validating (270) said value as being the effective value of an existing sub network connected to said Intranet. f) decrementing n by 1 and repeating steps b)-e) for the purpose of testing new values of possible subnet masks.
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- 11. Process according to claim I characterized in that the discovered topology is transmitted to an external server by means of a HTTP or HTTPS request for the purpose of updating an external database.
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12. Apparatus for allowing the discovery of a Intranet network comprising at least one sub network;
- said apparatus being pluggable into said Intranet and further including;
means for allowing a connection to said at least one sub network;
means for achieving a self IP configuration and for receiving an IP address;
means for computing a set of sub network configurations which are likely to be connected to said Intranet;
means generating ICMP requests for successively testing and validating the different network configurations for the purpose of discovering the sub networks of said network.
- said apparatus being pluggable into said Intranet and further including;
Specification