Automated installation location detection for ethernet-based devices

An Ethernet network, comprising:

• an Ethernet switch comprising a plurality of physical ports, wherein the Ethernet switch is configured such that each port of the plurality of physical ports is associated with a single network address;
• and
• a plurality of computing devices, each computing device of the plurality of computing devices comprising
• a network interface configured to communicate with one port of the plurality of physical ports;
• a memory configured to store a plurality of different initialization protocols each associated with a corresponding network address of a stored plurality of network addresses;
• and
• a processor configured to
• attempt to connect to the Ethernet switch via the network interface using a network address from the stored plurality of network addresses;
• in response to connecting with the Ethernet switch using the network address, identify a corresponding initialization protocol associated with the network address;
• and
• execute the corresponding initialization protocol.

A computer program product including one or more non-transitory machine-readable mediums encoding instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause a process to be carried out for initializing a computing device based on its physical location, the process comprising:

• attempting to connect to a network switch via a network interface of the computing device using a network address from a stored plurality of network addresses, wherein each of the stored plurality of network addresses is associated with a different initialization protocol;
• in response to connecting with the network switch using the network address, identifying a corresponding initialization protocol associated with the network address;
• and
• executing the corresponding initialization protocol to configure the computing device.