Patent ID: 11870777
Assignee: MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORPORATION
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC G  H

Claim 0:
1. A relay device, comprising:
a plurality of input/output ports each of which is connected to each of a plurality of devices including a plurality of relay devices;
a memory to store authentication information used for performing authentication of a target relay device which is a relay device to be authenticated in the plurality of relay devices; and
processing circuitry
to acquire a target authentication packet via a target input/output port, the target authentication packet being an authentication packet used for performing the authentication of the target relay device, the target input/output port being an input/output port connected to the target relay device in the plurality of input/output ports,
to perform the authentication of the target relay device by referring to the authentication information, wherein the authentication information includes a first flag and a second flag in association with each of the plurality of relay devices, and the processing circuitry updates the first flag associated with the target relay device to a first value and updates the second flag associated with the target relay device to a third value when the authentication of the target relay device is succeeded,
wherein, each time a predetermined aging update standby period elapses, the processing circuitry selects a relay device out of the plurality of relay devices sequentially one by one, updates the first flag associated with the selected relay device to a second value when the second flag associated with the selected relay device is a fourth value, and updates the second flag associated with the selected relay device to the fourth value when the second flag associated with the selected relay device is the third value, and
wherein the processing circuitry determines that the authentication of the target relay device is succeeded when the first flag associated with the target relay device is the first value and that the authentication of the target relay device is failed when the first flag associated with the target relay device is the second value,
to cause a transfer input/output port to output a transfer packet acquired via the target input/output port when the authentication of the target relay device is succeeded, the transfer input/output port being an input/output port to which a transfer destination of the transfer packet is connected in the plurality of input/output ports, and
to discard the transfer packet when the authentication of the target relay device is failed.