Patent ID: 8634342

Claim:
A method comprising: maintaining a mesh topology data structure containing information on a tree topology of a wireless mesh network comprising mesh points, including a root access point and one or more other mesh points including at least one mesh access point, the root access point forming a root of the tree topology; and using a tree-walking method to send an upgrade message to the root access point and to each other mesh point in the wireless mesh network until each mesh point has received the upgrade message, wherein receiving the upgrade message enables the receiving mesh point to upgrade according to contents of the upgrade message without necessarily disrupting the wireless mesh network, wherein in case the upgrade message is for an upgrade wherein none of the receiving mesh points needs to be rebooted, the method further comprises receiving an upgrade acknowledgement message from one or more mesh points that receive the upgrade message and that upgrade as a result of the receipt, and wherein in case the upgrade message is for an upgrade wherein the receiving mesh points need to be rebooted, said using the tree-walking method to send the upgrade continues until it is known that all mesh points of the tree topology have received the upgrade message, the method further comprises sending a message to all the mesh points of the wireless mesh network to reboot once it is known that all mesh points of the tree-topology have received the upgrade message, wherein the upgrade message for a particular mesh point includes one or both a software upgrade message comprising new operating software for the particular mesh point, and a configuration upgrade message comprising one or more new wireless mesh network configuration parameters for the mesh point.