Patent ID: 7313819

Claim:
A method comprising: detecting, by a boot time process of a network device in a factory default configuration, the presence of a removable external storage device on a local internal communications bus connector containing therein addressability data that allows the network device to communicate and be addressable within a network environment in which it will be functioning, the addressability data including an IP address of a remote device configuration server; after detecting the presence of the storage device, receiving at the network device the addressability data by using a protocol associated with the storage device to transport the addressability data from the storage device to the network device; establishing addressability of the network device, by the boot time process, to enable it to communicate with and be addressed by other nodes in the network environment by configuring one or more address parameters of the network device based upon the addressability data; and receiving configuration data from the remote device configuration server, the configuration data including an IP address of a peer VPN device with which the network device may establish a tunnel.