Patent ID: 7464403

Claim:
A computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions that when executed by a processor cause a computer to perform a method for creating a preconfigured network, the method comprising: creating a plurality of nodes on bootable read-only media of a TCP/IP (“transmission control protocol/internet protocol”) network capable of encrypted communications as follows: installing an operating system to a target partition of a computer hard drive mass storage device residing in a computer; compiling an operating system kernel supporting IPSec (“Internet Protocol Security”) and a plurality of virtual disks; copying the compiled operating system kernel to the target partition; compiling an authentication server and copying associated files to the target partition; restarting the computer to boot from the target partition; initializing the authentication server which will control authentication and authorization functions for the network; creating instances within the authentication server of specific IP addresses and hostnames; generating, in a specific directory, multiple unique instances of authentication and authorization information for the authentication server; configuring parameters for IPSec; configuring start-up parameters for the operating system; configuring the authentication server; configuring the operating system loader; rebooting to an original instance of the operating system to begin per-node generation of bootable read-only media images to be written to storage media; moving the authentication and authorization information for the authentication server from the target partition to a local directory; copying the target partition to a processing partition; iteratively generating unique bootable read-only media image information, including internet protocol (“IP”) address, hostname information, and routing information for the plurality of nodes, from the processing partition; copying the previously-generated host-specific authentication and authorization information which must conform to the newly generated internet protocol (“IP”) address from the local directory into the processing partition; and writing the generated unique bootable read-only media image information to read-only media; wherein each bootable image on read-only media, when used as the boot image for a computer, boots the computer into the operating system such that each such computer will have a unique preconfigured IP address.