Patent ID: 7779404

Claim:
A method performed in a network device that comprises a plurality of software components that control operations and features of the network device, wherein operations and features of the network device are defined in part by a configuration, the method comprising: in response to determining a configuration change in an operational state of the network device: for all software components that make up an operating system for the network device: the network device creating and storing one or more configuration partition namespaces each comprising a version identifier and one or more configuration tuples; wherein the one or more configuration tuples describe the configuration change in the operational state of the network device; the network device associating the one or more of the configuration partition namespaces to one or more configuration partitions; the network device associating, to the one or more configuration partition namespaces, one or more of the software components to be executed to implement the configuration change of the network device; and the network device creating and storing information identifying the one or more of the software components, its associated configuration partition namespaces, and the version identifier of each of the configuration partition namespaces; building the operating system for the network device using the information identifying the software components and the associated configuration partition namespaces, stored in the one or more configuration partitions; loading an active set of configuration partition namespaces as part of a boot up of the operating system; dynamically installing an additional software component that is not associated with the active set of configuration partition namespaces; dynamically creating and storing a new configuration partition namespace corresponding to the further installed software component; identifying the new configuration partition namespace in the active set of configuration partition namespaces.