US 2018/0123944 A1 · SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DETERMINING A DEFAULT GATEWAY WITHOUT AN ENDPOINT CONFIGURATION

Abstract

Disclosed are system, methods, and non-transitory computer readable media for accurately calculating a default gateway of an endpoint without probing the endpoint for the configured values to determine the path between network elements. Tracing the path of a flow in a network and displaying that on a user interface is extremely useful for network troubleshooting purposes. In order to find the gateway the flow would take cut of the L2 domain, the endpoint's L2 default gateway is required. Usually the L2 gateway for network endpoints is configured on the endpoints themselves and this information cannot be accessed by network controllers (e.g., APIC-EM) directly. In such cases APIC-EM needs to determine the L2 gateway based on the information available to it from the network elements, instead of the endpoints themselves.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

receiving, at a controller, at least a source IP address and a destination IP address;
traversing, by the controller, a Layer 2 forwarding domain, where the Layer 2 forwarding domain comprises information of one or more network elements;
for each network element traversed, determining whether the network element is a candidate gateway;
in response to the network element being a candidate gateway, determining the candidate gateway is an actual gateway;
determining a path between the source IP address and the destination IP address based on the actual gateway;
and
displaying, by the controller, the path.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application

15/446,421Filed 1 Mar 2017

Priority

28 Oct 2016

Published

3 May 2018

Term ends

Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification7 codes

H04L 43/20
Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks: the monitoring system or the monitored elements being virtualised, abstracted or…
H04L 45/028
Topology update or discovery: dynamic adaptation of the update intervals, e.g. event-triggered updates
H04L 43/10
Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks: active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
H04L 45/66
Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks: layer 2 routing, e.g. in Ethernet based MAN's

Systems and methods for determining a default gateway without an endpoint configuration

Life of this patent

Systems and methods for determining a default gateway without an endpoint configuration

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20