Patent ID: 7814322

Claim:
A mesh node, comprising: a processor that operates as a Station service for scanning different channels configured for a network, authenticating and associating with Access Point (AP) nodes and mesh nodes; the processor also operating as an AP service for scanning, authenticating, and associating with Station nodes and mesh nodes on the same radio interface as when the processor operates as a Station service; the processor also dynamically configuring mutually reversible authenticator and supplicant authentication services with peer nodes according to the type of discovered peer nodes and peer addresses independently of any pre-existing centralized mesh authentication infrastructure; and generating Pairwise Master Key Identifiers (PMKIDs) for individual peer-to-peer connections with the peers according to local and peer addresses, wherein computing the PMKIDs is according to the following: PMKID=HASH(PMK, “PMK Name” ∥MAX(AA|SPA)∥MIN(AA|SPA)), where PMK is the Pairwise Master Key, AA is the Authenticator MAC Address, SPA is the Supplicant MAC Address, PMK Name is a character string for the PMK, and HASH is a hashing operation.