Patent ID: 9559897
Date: 2017-01-31
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method comprising: maintaining, by a master device in a system of network devices, a first configuration that specifies a first set of links between a first group of network devices in the system, wherein the first set of links includes one or more provisional links that are user-defined and do not exist in a physical topology of the system, and wherein each link in the first set of links specifies device identifiers for network devices located at endpoints of the link; generating, by the master device, a second configuration that specifies a second set of links between a second group of network devices in the system, wherein the second set of links includes one or more existing links in the physical topology of the system, wherein one or more network devices in the second group are unknown devices that are not associated with a device identifier in the physical topology, and wherein the second set of links include at least one link that is not in the first set of links; assigning, by the master device, device identifiers to the unknown devices in the second group by: transmitting, by the master device, the assigned device identifiers to the unknown devices for local storage on the unknown devices; merging, by the master device, the one or more provisional links in the first set of links with the one or more existing links in the second set of links to generate a merged configuration for the system; and storing the merged configuration in a nonvolatile memory of the master device.