Proactive notification of wireless client address rotation
AssigneeCisco Technology, Inc.
InventorsRobert E. Barton, Jerome Henry, Stephen Michael Orr
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Abstract
A network controller provides proactive notification of a wireless client device's address rotation to layer 2 (L2) and/or layer 3 (L3) devices. Traditional methods of device address discovery rely on broadcasting of address queries across a plurality of links until a path to a device having the queried address responds. As device address changes become more frequent in an effort to improve user privacy, traditional methods of address discovery impose a large burden on networks, reducing their performance and efficiency. By proactively propagating address changes to upstream devices, the need for broadcast oriented address discovery techniques is reduced, resulting in improved network performance.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- maintaining information for one or more network devices which store an address mapping of an Internet Protocol (IP) address to a first media access control (MAC) address of a wireless device, wherein the wireless device is identified via the first MAC address;
- determining that the wireless device has rotated its MAC address from the first MAC address to a second MAC address;
- and
- providing to the one or more network devices a notification that the wireless device has rotated its MAC address and of the second MAC address.
An apparatus comprising:
- a network interface configured to enable network communications;
- one or more processors;
- and
- one or more memories storing instructions that when executed configure the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
- maintaining information for one or more network devices which store an address mapping of an Internet Protocol (IP) address to a first media access control (MAC) address of a wireless device, wherein the wireless device is identified via the first MAC address;
- determining that the wireless device has rotated its MAC address from the first MAC address to a second MAC address;
- and
- providing to the one or more network devices a notification that the wireless device has rotated its MAC address and of the second MAC address.
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that when executed configure one or more processor to perform operations comprising:
- maintaining information for one or more network devices which store an address mapping of an Internet Protocol (IP) address to a first media access control (MAC) address of a wireless device that is identified via the first MAC address;
- determining that the wireless device has rotated its MAC address from the first MAC address to a second MAC address;
- and
- providing to the one or more network devices a notification that the wireless device has rotated its MAC address and of the second MAC address.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.