Secure management protocol
First Claim
1. A system comprising:
- a workstation communicatively coupled to a network; and
a switch managed appliance communicatively coupled to the network to couple the workstation to a selected one of plural devices connected to the switch managed appliance so the workstation can control processing by the selected one of the plural devices;
wherein the workstation operatively initiates a management session with the managed appliance by (A) establishing a secure sockets layer connection on a predefined Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) port number with the managed appliance and then issuing a login request to the managed appliance and (B) the switch managed appliance authenticates the workstation based on the login request, andwherein the workstation uses the established secure sockets layer connection on the predefined TCP port number and only the established secure sockets layer connection to execute Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) commands to the switch managed appliance to control the switch managed appliance using a secure sockets layer communication protocol and the switch managed appliance responds to the SNMP commands only if the switch managed appliance first authenticates the workstation based on the login input identifier.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method and apparatus for securely managing managed appliances such as keyboard/video/mouse (KVM) switches using a network communication protocol is described. A client workstation initiates a management session by establishing a secure sockets layer connection with the appliance over a predefined TCP port number. This secure management protocol is used to manage appliances that support SNMP by tunneling SNMP protocol requests through the presently-described protocol. The protocol includes a login sequence to enhance the security of data transmitted according to the protocol. The workstation can read and set object identifiers in the managed appliance. The workstation can also read and write files to and from the managed appliance. In addition, a single managed appliance can have multiple management sessions open at one time.
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Citations
16 Claims
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1. A system comprising:
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a workstation communicatively coupled to a network; and a switch managed appliance communicatively coupled to the network to couple the workstation to a selected one of plural devices connected to the switch managed appliance so the workstation can control processing by the selected one of the plural devices; wherein the workstation operatively initiates a management session with the managed appliance by (A) establishing a secure sockets layer connection on a predefined Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) port number with the managed appliance and then issuing a login request to the managed appliance and (B) the switch managed appliance authenticates the workstation based on the login request, and wherein the workstation uses the established secure sockets layer connection on the predefined TCP port number and only the established secure sockets layer connection to execute Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) commands to the switch managed appliance to control the switch managed appliance using a secure sockets layer communication protocol and the switch managed appliance responds to the SNMP commands only if the switch managed appliance first authenticates the workstation based on the login input identifier. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification