Patent ID: 7720001

Claim:
A method of discovering interconnections between a plurality of network devices arranged in a stacked configuration, each network device comprising a central processing unit (CPU) and a network switch, the method comprising: sending a first probe packet from a first network device to a next network device in the stacked configuration, the first probe packet including a tag indicating a transmit port from which the first probe packet was transmitted and a receive port at which the first probe packet was received; receiving a second probe packet at the first network device from a previous network device in the stacked configuration, the second probe packet including a tag indicating a transmit port from which the second probe packet was transmitted and a receive port at which the second probe packet was received; sending-at least one-routing packet from the first network device to the next network device, the at least one routing packet including configuration information from a local database included in the first network device; determining that all of the configuration information is received by each of the network devices of the plurality of network devices comprising confirming that each of the other network devices has received the configuration information; electing one of the plurality of network devices as a master network device; and sending, from the master network device to the other network devices of the plurality of network devices, at least one topology packet including final configuration information for the stack configuration.