NETWORK SWITCH AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY ESTABLISHING CONNECTION TO A WIDE AREA NETWORK

摘要

A network switch is configured to automatically establish a connection to a WAN by determining which of a plurality of ports of the network switch is a current uplink port leading to the WAN. The switch attempts to establish connectivity to the WAN using a first set of port configurations as the current set of port configurations. Upon determining that the first set of port configurations does not allow the network switch to determine an uplink port, the network switch changes to a mode having a first security measure and also having a relaxed set of current port configurations. The network switch again attempts to establish connectivity to the WAN, and upon further failures to determine an uplink port leading to the WAN, the network switch may be configured to switch to other modes utilizing further relaxed port configurations and the same or additional security measures.

主权项

1. A method in a network switch to automatically establish a connection to a wide area network (WAN), wherein the network switch is within a local area network (LAN), wherein the network switch is coupled to a network access device that is within the LAN and that acts as a gateway to the WAN, wherein the network switch includes a plurality of ports any one of which may be coupled to the network access device and operate as a current uplink port for establishing the connection to the WAN, wherein the network switch has a current set of port configurations that includes a current port configuration for each of the plurality of ports, wherein the current port configuration for each of the ports identifies a set of zero or more Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) identifiers (IDs), wherein network traffic must meet the current port configuration of the ports on which that network traffic is received and transmitted to avoid that network traffic from being blocked at those ports, the method comprising:
attempting to establish connectivity to the WAN over the plurality of ports with a first set of one or more Internet Protocol (IP) configurations using a first set of port configurations as the current set of port configurations, wherein an IP configuration includes a VLAN ID, an IP address for the network switch, a subnet mask, an IP address of the gateway, and an IP address of a Domain Name System (DNS) server; and responsive to determining that connectivity to the WAN has not been established, automatically performing the following,
switching to a mode that has a first security measure and that relaxes the current set of port configurations from the first set of port configurations to a second set of port configurations, andattempting to establish connectivity to the WAN with a second set of one or more IP configurations using the current set of port configurations.