Method and apparatus for network subnet discovery

• US 9,077,635 B2
• Filed: 02/27/2012
• Issued: 07/07/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Conduent Business Services, LLC (Conduent, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Meyer, Lawrence W., Kumar, Vijay, Igharas, Walter
• Primary Examiner(s): BEDNASH, JOSEPH A
• Application Number:
  US13/405,962
• Publication Number:
  US 20130223441A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,226 Days
• Field of Search: 370/389, 370/395.1, 370/432, 370/457
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/02 Topology update or discovery

Abstract

A method and non-transitory computer readable medium for discovering network subnets are disclosed. For example, the method sets a host portion of a network address to a fixed value for a particular network, sends a discovery message to a subnet of a plurality of subnets having the fixed value of the host portion for the particular network, discovers the subnet if a response to the discovery message is received from a device and repeats the sending and the discovering until all of the plurality of subnets are checked, where the sending and the discovering are applied only to the fixed value of the host portion for each of the plurality of subnets.

Claims

1. A method for discovering network subnets, comprising:

beginning the discovering with a value of 001 or 254 for a host portion of a network address to a fixed value for a particular network, wherein the particular network comprises a private network of a customer;

sending a discovery message to a subnet of a plurality of subnets having the value of the host portion for the particular network, wherein the discovery message comprises a simple network management protocol (SNMP) version 3 that requires no pre-authorization and requires a response from a device, wherein which ones of the plurality of subnets are being used is previously unknown for all of the plurality of subnets;

discovering the subnet when the response to the discovery message is received from the device;

fixing the value of the host portion in response to the discovering the subnet;

using the value as a seed for subsequent checks to indicate that all routers will be at a same address in a local subnet when the local subnet is configured such that a router is at a different address in the local subnet;

recording the subnet that is discovered in a database after the discovering;

discovering one or more endpoints on the subnet; and

repeating the sending, the discovering the subnet, the recording and the discovering the one or more endpoints on the subnet until all of the plurality of subnets are checked , where the sending, the discovering the subnet, the recording and the discovering the one or more endpoints on the subnet are applied only to the value of the host portion that is fixed for each of the plurality of subnets.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the discovery message comprises an engine identification request under SNMPv3.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the network address comprises an Internet protocol version four network address.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the network address comprises an internet protocol version six network address.

5. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a plurality of instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations for discovering network subnets, the operations comprising:

beginning the discovering with a value of 001 or 254 for a host portion of a network address to a fixed value for a particular network, wherein the particular network comprises a private network of a customer;

sending a discovery message to a subnet of a plurality of subnets having the value of the host portion for the particular network, wherein the discovery message comprises a simple network management protocol (SNMP) version 3 that requires no pre-authorization and requires a response from a device, wherein which ones of the plurality of subnets are being used is previously unknown for all of the plurality of subnets;

discovering the subnet when the response to the discovery message is received from the device;

fixing the value of the host portion in response to the discovering the subnet;

using the value as a seed for subsequent checks to indicate that all routers will be at a same address in a local subnet when the local subnet is configured such that a router is at a different address in the local subnet;

recording the subnet that is discovered in a database after the discovering;

discovering one or more endpoints on the subnet; and

repeating the sending, the discovering the subnet, the recording and the discovering the one or more endpoints on the subnet until all of the plurality of subnets are checked, where the sending, the discovering the subnet, the recording and the discovering the one or more endpoints on the subnet are applied only to the value of the host portion that is fixed for each of the plurality of subnets.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 5, wherein the discovery message comprises an engine identification request under SNMPv3.

7. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 5, wherein the network address comprises an internet protocol version four network address.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 5, wherein the network address comprises an Internet protocol version six network address.

9. A method for discovering network subnets, comprising:

beginning the discovering with a value of 001 or 254 for a host portion of a network address to a fixed value for a particular network, wherein the value of 001 comprises a first host of the network address for the particular network and the value of 254 comprises the last host of the network address for the particular network;

sending a simple network management protocol version three (SNMPv3) engine identification request message that requires no pre-authorization and requires a response from a router to a subnet of a plurality of subnets having the value of the host portion for the particular network, wherein which ones of the plurality of subnets are being used is previously unknown for all of the plurality of subnets;

discovering the subnet when the response is received to the SNMPv3 engine identification request message from the router on the subnet, wherein the router is configured with SNMPv3;

fixing the value of the host portion in response to the discovering the subnet;

using the value as a seed for subsequent checks to indicate that all routers will be at a same address in a local subnet when the local subnet is configured such that a router is at a different address in the local subnet;

recording the subnet as discovered in a database after the response from the router is received;

discovering one or more endpoints on the subnet;

repeating the sending, the discovering the subnet, recording and the discovering the one or more endpoints on the subnet until all of the plurality of subnets are checked, where the sending, the discovering the subnet, the recording and the discovering the one or more endpoints on the subnet are applied only to the fixed value of the host portion for each of the plurality of subnets.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the network address comprises at least one of:

an internet protocol version four address or an internet protocol version six address.