Automatic discovery of network core type
First Claim
1. A method of determining a capability of at least one communication facility to pass network layer protocol packets with a particular characteristic between a first network layer protocol process and a second network layer protocol process, the method comprising the steps of:
- detecting whether at least one first network layer protocol packet has been received, the at least one first network layer protocol packet comprising first information with the particular characteristic, the first information being capable of causing at least one filtering/forwarding entity not to pass the at least one first network layer protocol packet; and
determining the capability of the at least one communication facility to pass the network layer protocol packets with the particular characteristic.
20 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Systems and methods for automatically discovering the configuration of network and/or communication facilities are provided. The determination generally involves receiving and/or sending at least one test message or packet with special characteristics that normally would be filtered by filtering/forwarding entities in connectionless routed cores, but normally would be forwarded by connectionless communication facilities. If the communication facilities do not contain the filtering/forwarding entity, the at least one test packet will be forwarded or passed through the communication facilities. If the at least one test packet is filtered or not passed, then at least two scenarios are possible. First, the at least one test packet may be filtered and may be silently discarded in which case a determination that the network did not pass the at least one test packet may be made based upon a timeout of a counter. Second, the at least one test packet may be filtered and may cause the generation of error or control messages indicating that the at least one test packet is not a proper packet for the network and/or communication facilities.
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Citations
35 Claims
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1. A method of determining a capability of at least one communication facility to pass network layer protocol packets with a particular characteristic between a first network layer protocol process and a second network layer protocol process, the method comprising the steps of:
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detecting whether at least one first network layer protocol packet has been received, the at least one first network layer protocol packet comprising first information with the particular characteristic, the first information being capable of causing at least one filtering/forwarding entity not to pass the at least one first network layer protocol packet; and determining the capability of the at least one communication facility to pass the network layer protocol packets with the particular characteristic. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A system to determine a capability of at least one communication facility to pass network layer protocol packets with a particular characteristic between a first network layer protocol process and a second network layer protocol process, the method comprising the steps of:
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first logic configured to detect whether at least one first network layer protocol packet has been received, the at least one first network layer protocol packet comprising first information with the particular characteristic, the first information being capable of causing at least one filtering/forwarding entity to not pass the at least one first network layer protocol packet; and second logic configured to determine the capability of the at least one communication facility to pass the network layer protocol packets with the particular characteristic. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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25. A method of determining a capability of a communication facility to pass certain network layer packets between a first network layer protocol entity and a second network layer protocol entity, the method comprising the steps of:
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detecting reception of a network layer packet having information with a particular characteristic, the information causing a filtering/forwarding entity to block the network layer packet from passage through the entity; and determining that the communication facility has a capability of passing network layer packets with the particular characteristic, upon detecting that the network layer packet having information with the particular characteristic has been received; and determining that the communication facility has no capability of passing the network layer packets with the particular characteristic, upon detecting that the network layer packet having information with the particular characteristic is no longer expected to be received. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35)
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Specification