METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR COLLECTING TOPOLOGY INFORMATION

• US 20160315821A1
• Filed: 07/01/2016
• Published: 10/27/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/13/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Viavi Solutions, Inc. (Lumentum Holdings Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Viavi Solutions, Inc. (Lumentum Holdings Inc.)
• Inventors: PAGE, John M., BAUER, Samuel M., HSUEH, Canning, STEVENS, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 9,942,101 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/622 Layer-2 addresses, e.g. medium access control [MAC] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/20 Hop count for routing purposes, e.g. TTL
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/00 Reducing energy consumption in communication networks

Abstract

A method of providing topology information about a network to a topology manager is disclosed. The network includes a plurality of sensors each having a sensor ID, and the method includes performing the following steps at each of the plurality of sensors: receiving a stream of packets and identifying a topology trace packet in the stream of packets, wherein the topology trace packet has a destination address and an ID of a previous sensor, including the sensor ID in the topology trace packet, sending the topology trace packet to the destination address, forming a report message so as to include the sensor ID, the previous sensor ID, sending the report to the topology manager; and, providing network addresses of adjacent nodes to the topology manager.

Claims

1-19. -19. (canceled)

20. A method comprising:

identifying, by a sensor, a topology trace packet;

modifying, by the sensor, a payload of the topology trace packet to include a sensor identifier, of the sensor, without modifying a header of the topology trace packet; and

sending, by the sensor and after modifying the payload of the topology trace packet, the topology trace packet in a direction of a node identified by a destination address of the topology trace packet.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

receiving a stream of packets,

where identifying the topology trace packet comprises;

identifying the topology trace packet in the stream of packets.

22. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

identifying a pattern in a particular location of a packet,

where identifying the topology trace packet comprises;

determining that the packet is the topology trace packet based on identifying the pattern in the particular location of the packet.

23. The method of claim 22, where the particular location is a location associated with the payload of the topology trace packet.

24. The method of claim 22, where the pattern is one of a plurality of authentication patterns stored in a memory of the sensor.

25. The method of claim 20,

where the header includes a source address, and

where the source address is different from the sensor identifier.

26. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

generating, after modifying the payload of the topology trace packet, a report based on the topology trace packet; and

sending the report using a source Internet Protocol (IP) address of the topology trace packet as a destination address of the report.

27. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

copying, from the header of the topology trace packet and before sending the topology trace packet, a source media access control (MAC) address or a destination MAC address to the payload of the topology trace packet.

28. The method of claim 20, where the topology trace packet comprises information about at least one device that the topology trace packet previously passed through before arriving to the sensor.

29. A system comprising:

a sensor to;

identify a topology trace packet;

modify, to obtain a modified topology trace packet, a payload of the topology trace packet to include a sensor identifier, of the sensor, without modifying a destination address of the topology trace packet; and

send the modified topology trace packet in a direction of a node identified by the destination address of the modified topology trace packet.

30. The system of claim 29, where the sensor is further to:

generate a report based on the modified topology trace packet; and

send the report to a topology manager.

31. The system of claim 30, where the report includes the sensor identifier and another sensor identifier of another sensor that processed the topology trace packet before the sensor.

32. The system of claim 30, where, when sending the report, the sensor is to:

send the report to the topology manager by using a source Internet Protocol (IP) address of the topology trace packet as a destination address of the report.

33. The system of claim 29,

where the payload of the topology trace packet comprises a first time-to-live (TTL) value, and

where the sensor is further to:

identify a second TTL value at the sensor;

determine a difference between the first TTL value and the second TTL value; and

include, in the modified topology trace packet, information identifying the difference.

34. The system of claim 29, where the topology trace packet comprises information about at least one device that the topology trace packet previously passed through before arriving to the sensor.

35. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions, the instructions comprising:

one or more instructions that, when executed by a sensor, cause the sensor to;

identify a topology trace packet;

modify, to obtain a modified topology trace packet, a payload of the topology trace packet to include a sensor identifier, of the sensor, without modifying a header of the topology trace packet; and

send the modified topology trace packet in a direction of a node identified by a destination address of the modified topology trace packet.

36. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 35,

where the instructions further comprise:

one or more instructions that, when executed by the sensor, cause the sensor to;

receive a packet;

identify a pattern in the packet; and

determine that the pattern matches an authentication pattern stored in a memory of the sensor, and

where the one or more instructions to identify the topology trace packet comprise;

one or more instructions that, when executed by the sensor, cause the sensor to;

determine that the packet is the topology trace packet based on determining that the pattern matches the authentication pattern.

37. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 35, where the instructions further comprise:

one or more instructions that, when executed by the sensor, cause the sensor to;

copy, from the header of the topology trace packet, a source media access control (MAC) address to the payload of the topology trace packet.

38. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 35, where the instructions further comprise:

one or more instructions that, when executed by the sensor, cause the sensor to;

generate a report based on the modified topology trace packet; and

send the report using a source Internet Protocol (IP) address of the topology trace packet as a destination address of the report.

39. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 35, where the instructions further comprise:

one or more instructions that, when executed by the sensor, cause the sensor to;

identify a current time-to-live (TTL) value at the sensor; and

include, in the modified topology trace packet, information identifying the current TTL value.

40. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 35, where the topology trace packet comprises information about at least one device previously passed by the topology trace packet before arriving to the sensor.