Patent ID: 7889665
Filing Date: 2011-02-15
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of discovering medium access control (MAC) addresses in a network, the method comprising: receiving, at an access node, a diagnostic message from an operator, the diagnostic message comprising physical port information and indicating that at least a portion of a MAC address of a destination bridge port is unknown to the operator; forwarding the diagnostic message to a respective bridge port of the access node; determining whether the physical port information specified in the diagnostic message corresponds to a physical port of the respective bridge port; and sending a reply message to the operator specifying a MAC address of the respective bridge port, wherein the diagnostic message comprises a destination MAC address for a Loopback message and a target MAC address for a Link Trace message, wherein a wildcard private MAC address is used in the destination MAC address for the Loopback message and in the target MAC address for the Link Trace message, and wherein at least two bits of the wildcard private MAC address are set to a predetermined pattern, the predetermined pattern identifying the portion of the MAC address unknown to the operator.