AUTOMATIC GENERATION OF FORMS FOR DEVICE CONFIGURATION

• US 20150220233A1
• Filed: 01/31/2014
• Published: 08/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Aruba Networks Incorporated (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Kok, Choh Mun, Mehra, Ravi
• Granted Patent: US 9,824,080 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4411 Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0803 Configuration setting

Abstract

The present disclosure discloses a method and network device for automatic generation of forms for device configurations. Specifically, a network device receives a static configuration document from a user. The network device waits for a content creator to parse through the configuration document and tag various dynamic fields with supported dynamic content tags. The network device can then extract the dynamic variables from the processed document and generate forms to present to the user for the requested information. Next, the network device generates static configuration file(s) corresponding to one or more devices for the user based on the user input values.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by one or more hardware processors, causes performance of a first set of operations comprising:

obtaining a first document comprising a plurality of variables;

traversing the first document to identify each of the plurality of variables; and

generating code which, when executed, causes performance of a second set of operations for requesting a user input value for each of the plurality of variables.

2. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the second set of operations comprises defining an input format for each of the plurality of variables based on respective information associated with each of the plurality of variables.

3. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first document comprises two occurrences of a first variable, and wherein the code requests a first user input value for the first variable and uses the same first user input value as a value for each occurrence of the first variable.

4. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first document comprises another variable separate from the plurality of variables.

5. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the code comprises generating a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to request the user input value for each of the plurality of variables.

6. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first set of operations further comprise generating a second document based on (a) at least a portion of the static values in the first document and (b) the user input value for each of the plurality of variables.

7. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first set of operations further comprise generating a second document comprising (a) at least a portion of the static values in the first document and (b) the user input value for each of the plurality of variables.

8. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the second document comprises a device configuration for a particular device.

9. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein the second document is generated based on one of a plurality of templates, the template being selected based on a particular device.

10. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first set of operations further comprise generating a second document with default values based on the user input value for each of the plurality of variables.

11. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein requesting the user input value for each of the plurality of variables comprises dynamically selecting variables for requesting user input values based on received user input values.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the second set of operations comprises requesting a particular user input value for a particular variable not in the first document.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the second set of operations comprises requesting a particular user input value for a particular variable, the particular variable being selected based on evaluation of a condition.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein requesting the user input value for each of the plurality of variable comprises selecting an order of the plurality of variables for requesting user input values based on an order of a first occurrence of each of the plurality of variables.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein requesting the user input value for each of the plurality of variable comprises selecting an order of the plurality of variables for requesting user input values based on an indication of the order in the first document.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by one or more hardware processors, causes performance of operations comprising:

displaying a first user input field for obtaining a first user input;

receiving the first user input from the user;

concurrently with receiving the first user input from the user;

generating a device configuration for a device based on a template associated with the device and the first user input; and

displaying the device configuration for the device.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the user input field and the device configuration are concurrently displayed on a same screen.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the device configuration comprises a Command Line Interface (CLI) command.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein displaying the device configuration comprises displaying the first user input in a GUI interface for configuring the device.

20. A system comprising:

at least one hardware processor;

the system being configured to perform operations comprising;

obtaining a first document comprising a plurality of variables;

traversing the first document to identify each of the plurality of variables; and

generating code which, when executed, causes performance of a second set of operations for requesting a user input value for each of the plurality of variables.