Patent ID: 9112945
Filing Date: 2015-08-18
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for automatic address range detection for an IP network, the apparatus comprising: memory for storing flow data which comprises, for each flow relayed by a network device across a network boundary, one of a source IP address or a destination IP address for the flow and one of (a) the other of the source IP address or destination IP address, or (b) direction data indicative of a flow direction across the network boundary; and control logic configured to: generate a tree data structure representing IP addresses in the flow data such that successive nodes in a branch of the tree data structure are associated with successive portions of an IP address, and IP addresses with initial portions in common are represented in the tree data structure with at least one node in common; assign weights to nodes in the tree data structure in dependence on occurrences of represented IP addresses in at least a subset of the flow data; detect an IP address range of the IP network by identifying, in dependence on the assigned weights, a node associated with a last initial address portion that is common to all IP addresses in the IP network; and configure a network device with the IP address range to permit distinction between IP addresses inside and IP addresses outside the IP network in operation of the network device.