Device administration with public key infrastructure
AssigneeArista Networks, Inc.
InventorsKrishna Prabhakar, Rajarao Bhagya Prasad Nittur, Mohit Goyal, Anoop Kumaran Nair, Rajesh Kumar Ganapathy Achari
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A device access management server may facilitate secure access of a target device by an accessing device. The secure remote access of the target device by the accessing device may be facilitated by a public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate issued and/or validated by the device access management server.
Claims20
A method of operating server equipment that provides public key infrastructure services to facilitate access of a target device by an accessing device for performing device administration, the method comprising:
- receiving, from the accessing device, a certificate generation request;
- providing, to the accessing device and based on the certificate generation request, a public key certificate containing user identity information for the accessing device;
- receiving, from the target device, the public key certificate, the received public key certificate being a version of the provided public key certificate obtained by the target device in an access request for performing device administration;
- validating the received public key certificate;
- and
- providing, to the target device, an indication of the received public key certificate being valid, wherein the target device is configured to provide access to the accessing device for performing device administration based on the indication.
A method of operating an accessing device to obtain access to a target device for device administration, the method comprising:
- sending, to a device access management server, a certificate generation request;
- receiving, from the device access management server, a public key certificate containing user identity information for the accessing device;
- storing, on memory circuitry of the accessing device, the received public key certificate;
- and
- requesting, using the stored public key certificate, access to the target device for device administration, wherein the target device is a network device that forwards network traffic between hosts and wherein requesting access to the target device for device administration comprises sending, to the network device, an access request that includes the stored public key certificate.
A method of operating a target device to provide access to an accessing device for device administration, the method comprising:
- receiving, by the target device, an access request by the accessing device for device administration, the access request containing a public key certificate;
- sending, to a device access management server, a certificate validation request containing the public key certificate;
- receiving, from the device access management server, an indication of the public key certificate being valid;
- and
- providing access for device administration to the accessing device based on the indication of the public key certificate being valid.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.