Patent ID: 7571239

Claim:
A method for determining one or more credentials of a network device, comprising: selecting, for valid credential discovery, at least one of a first network device and an electronic address of the first network device from among a plurality of network devices and/or corresponding electronic addresses in a network; accessing a credential repository, the credential repository comprising a collection of electronic addresses corresponding to the network devices and, for each electronic address, a respective set of credentials previously used at the corresponding electronic address to evidence privileges for a network device associated with the corresponding electronic address, and a candidate credential queue, the candidate credential queue comprising a collection of candidate credentials, each candidate credential having a corresponding at least one of a priority and protocol identifier, the priority indicating a likelihood that the corresponding credential is in current use by the first network device and the protocol identifier indicating a protocol compatible with the corresponding credential, wherein the credentials comprise at least one of a community string, User-Based Security Model (USM) mode, authentication method, authentication password, privacy method, and privacy password; contacting the first network device; accessing, from the credential repository, a first set of credentials corresponding to a first electronic address of the first network device; testing the validity of each member of the first set of credentials in the credential repository with the first network device; when no credential in the first set of credentials is valid for use with the first network device, testing the validity of selected credentials in the candidate credential queue with the first network device; and when a credentials is valid for use with the first network device, recording the credential as being valid for the first network device.