Patent ID: 9537761
Date: 2017-01-03
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method in a first network device of an inter-chassis redundancy (ICR) system that is communicatively coupled to a second network device of the ICR system, the ICR system communicatively coupled to a third network device, the third network device communicatively coupled to a plurality of client devices, the method comprising: receiving, while serving as an active ICR network device in the ICR system, a plurality of Internet Protocol (IP) address requests from the third network device for the plurality of client devices; responsive to determining the second network device is serving as a standby ICR network device in the ICR system, allocating to a first client device of the plurality of client devices a first IP address selected from a common plurality of IP addresses that are allocatable by whichever one of the first network device and the second network device is currently serving as the active ICR network device while the other one of the first network device and the second network device is currently serving as the standby ICR network device; and responsive to determining the second network device is also serving as the active ICR network device in the ICR system, allocating to a second client device of the plurality of client devices a second IP address selected from the common plurality of IP addresses, wherein the second IP address is selected based on a result of a comparison of a first identifier (ID) identifying the first network device with a second ID identifying the second network device.