Detecting VLAN misconfiguration
AssigneeJuniper Networks, Inc.
InventorJisheng Wang
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed are methods for detecting misconfigured VLANs. In some embodiments, traffic on a VLAN across multiple access points is categorized. Traffic on the VLAN at a single access point is then also categorized. The categorization of the VLAN traffic at the single access point can be in response to, for example, communication errors or other conditions. The two categorizations are then compared to determine if the VLAN traffic at the AP is consistent with the VLAN traffic across a network (e.g., an enterprise network). If the VLAN traffic at the AP is generally consistent with that across the network, this may indicate that a downstream network component, such as a switch or router, is misconfigured. Thus, some embodiments programmatically reconfigure the downstream component to forward traffic for the VLAN.
Claims20
A method, comprising:
- categorizing, by one or more hardware processors, first network traffic communication between each of at least two access points (APs) of a plurality of APs and a network component over a virtual local area network (VLAN);
- in response to detecting, by the one or more hardware processors, one or more errors in second network traffic communication between one AP of the plurality of APs and the network component over the VLAN, categorizing the second network traffic communication between the one AP of the plurality of APs and the network component over the VLAN;
- in response to the categorization of the second network traffic communication matching the categorization of the first network traffic communication, detecting, by the one or more hardware processors, a misconfiguration of the network component;
- and
- automatically generating a notification identifying the detected misconfiguration of the network component.
A system, comprising:
- hardware processing circuitry;
- and
- one or more hardware memories comprising instructions that configure the hardware processing circuitry to perform operations comprising:
- categorizing, by one or more hardware processors, first network traffic communication between each of at least two access points (APs) of a plurality of APs and a network component over a virtual local area network (VLAN);
- in response to detecting, by the one or more hardware processors, one or more errors in second network traffic communication between one AP of the plurality of APs and the network component over the VLAN, categorizing the second network traffic communication between the one AP of the plurality of APs and the network component over the VLAN;
- in response to the categorization of the second network communication matching the categorization of the first network traffic communication, detecting, by the one or more hardware processors, a misconfiguration of the network component;
- and
- automatically generating a notification identifying the detected misconfiguration of the network component.
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that when executed configure hardware processing circuitry to perform operations comprising:
- categorizing, by one or more hardware processors, first network traffic communication between each of at least two access points (APs) of a plurality of APs and a network component over a virtual local area network (VLAN);
- in response to detecting, by the one or more hardware processors, one or more errors in second network traffic communication between one AP of the plurality of APs and the network component over the VLAN, categorizing the second network traffic communication between the one AP of the plurality of APs and the network component over the VLAN;
- in response to the categorization of the second network traffic communication matching the categorization of the first network traffic communication, detecting, by the one or more hardware processors, a misconfiguration of the network component;
- and
- automatically generating a notification identifying the detected misconfiguration of the network component.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.