API for network discovery

• US 7,590,762 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2005
• Issued: 09/15/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Jones, David, Miner, Patrice L., Thaler, David G., Watson, Marieke I., Begorre, Bill, Cunningham, Aaron, Sinha, Alok
• Primary Examiner(s): Abdullahi; Salad
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mejia; Anthony
• Application Number:
  US11/296,790
• Publication Number:
  US 20070130429A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,378 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/220, 709/250, 711/147, 719/315, 719/319
• US Class Current: 709/250
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4641 Virtual LANs, VLANs, e.g. virtual private networks [VPN] LAN interconnection over a bridge based backbone H04L12/462; encapsulation techniques H04L12/4633; routing of packets H04L45/00; packet switches H04L49/00; virtual private networks for security H04L63/0272

Abstract

Discovery of a network to which a device is in communication and classifying the network is disclosed. The network may be classified as a network already known or a new network signature may be created where the network signature is made up of a network id, a link id and a hop id.

Claims

1. On a device, a computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions thereon for automatically classifying networks to which the device is enabled to connect, comprising:

a store, a network location awareness service (NLA), and a network profile manager in communication with the store and the NLA, wherein;

the store includes;

one or more network profiles and one or more network signatures, wherein each of the one or more network signatures corresponds to a respective network profile and the one or more network profiles and the one or more network signatures are managed by the network profile manager; and

the network profile manager comprises a single COM object enabled to;

register with the NLA to receive notifications from the NLA when a status of a network connection to the device changes;

provide a set of notifications to a client, the set of notifications including separate notifications for;

a connection of a network corresponding to an existing network profile,

a disconnection of the network corresponding to the existing network profile,

an addition of a newly-added network profile,

a deletion of the existing network profile, and

a change to a property of the existing network profile; and

expose a set of application program interfaces (APIs) for managing network profiles, the set of APIs including separate APIs for;

enumerating network profiles corresponding to the networks that are connected to the device;

enumerating network profiles corresponding to networks that are disconnected from the device;

enumerating all network profiles;

enumerating network signatures for a specified network profile;

enumerating network interfaces corresponding to the specified network profile;

providing a connection status corresponding to the specified network profile, the status being one of connected or disconnected;

providing a connection status corresponding to a specified network signature, the status being one of connected or disconnected;

providing an authentication status corresponding to the specified network profile, the status being one of authenticated or not authenticated;

managing a friendly name for the specified network profile, the managing including getting the friendly name and setting the friendly name;

managing an icon for the specified network profile, the managing including getting the icon and setting the icon;

managing a description for the specified network profile, the managing including getting the description and setting the description;

obtaining a date corresponding to a creation date of the specified network profile; and

obtaining a date corresponding to a date of a connection, to the device, of a network corresponding to the specified network profile.

2. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions thereon further comprise a network profile management user interface, and wherein the set of APIs further includes a set of user interface APIs for use by the network profile management user interface, the set of user interface APIs including separate APIs for:

changing an association of a given network signature from a first network profile to a second network profile;

deleting the given network signature;

creating a new network profile;

deleting a given existing network profile; and

merging at least two selected existing network profiles.

3. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein a network signature of a particular network connection corresponding to a received notification from the NLA includes a network identification of the particular network connection, a link identification and a hop identification.

4. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the one or more network profiles each include a network identification, a name, a description, an icon ID, bits indicating managed or unmanaged and authenticated or unauthenticated, and a local time and date that the one or more network profiles was created.

5. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the one or more network signatures each include a network signature identification, a description, bits indicating managed or unmanaged and authenticated or unauthenticated, and the ID of an owning network profile.

6. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions for the network profile manager further comprise computer-executable instructions for deleting a network profile from the store that is not managed or corresponds to a specific network that is unconnected to the device.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions for the network profile manager further comprise computer-executable instructions for:

receiving a notification of a specific status change of a specific network connection from the NLA;

updating a signature status of a first stored network signature corresponding to a first network profile in the store when a received network signature corresponding to the specific network connection entirely matches the first stored network signature;

merging the received network signature with a second stored network signature corresponding to the first network profile in the store when the received network signature matches a portion of the second stored network signature; and

creating a new network profile corresponding to the received network signature with a specified name and returning data that allows use of the created new network profile with the specified name when the received network signature does not match a portion of any stored network signature in the store.

8. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the computer-executable instructions for merging the received network signature with the second stored network signature corresponding to the first network profile in the store when the received network signature matches the portion of the second stored network signature further comprises computer-executable instructions for:

associating the received network signature with the first network profile when the received network signature is managed and the network identification and an authentication status of the received network signature matches a network identification and an authentication status of the second stored network signature; and

associating the received network signature with the first network profile when the received network signature is unmanaged and the network identification and the link identification of the received network signature matches the network identification and a link identification of the second stored network signature.

9. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the computer-executable instructions for the network profile manager further comprises computer-executable instructions for:

returning a unique identifier of a specified network signature;

returning an identifier of a network that contains the specified network signature; and

returning a description for the specified network signature.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the computer-executable instructions for the network profile manager further comprises computer-executable instructions for returning a type of network signature wherein the type comprises at least one of managed, unmanaged, authenticated or unauthenticated.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the computer-executable instructions for the network profile manager further comprises computer-executable instructions for returning a list of interfaces of a specified network signature.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the computer-executable instructions for the network profile manager further comprises computer-executable instructions for moving a specified networking signature from a network profile to which the specified network signature corresponds to another network profile.