CN114513414B

CN114513414B - Method for managing AP, AC and AP

Info

Publication number: CN114513414B
Application number: CN202210112475.4A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 张司宇
Original assignee: New H3C Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: New H3C Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2022-01-29
Filing date: 2022-01-29
Publication date: 2024-05-03
Anticipated expiration: 2042-01-29
Also published as: CN114513414A

Abstract

The specification provides a method for managing an AP, an AC, and an AP, the method comprising: and judging whether the function capability set supported by the target AP meets the configuration requirement of the AC, and if not, sending an update version to the target AP so that the target AP is updated according to the update version. By the method, the AP version can be managed.

Description

Method for managing AP, AC and AP

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a method for managing an AP, an AC, and an AP.

Background

For scenes with certain scale, such as schools, hospitals, hotels, parks, office buildings and the like, the wireless network of the wireless network adopts an AC+AP networking mode, which is also a main form of enterprise-level wireless network. For various reasons such as construction and capacity expansion, versions may be different between the AC and the AP or between the AP and the AP, and network compatibility problems may possibly occur due to mismatch of version functions, for example, the AC supports a certain function, and the AP version is lower and does not support the function, which is represented by invalid configuration of the AC.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the disclosure provides a method for managing an AP, an AC and the AP, and by the method, management and upgrading of the version of the AP can be realized.

The embodiment of the disclosure provides a method for managing an AP, which comprises the following steps:

Judging whether a functional capability set supported by a target AP meets the configuration requirement of the AC or not;

And if not, sending an update version to the target AP so that the target AP is updated according to the update version.

The method further comprises the steps of: and receiving a first message sent by a target AP, wherein the first message carries a functional capability set supported by the target AP.

The first message includes: and carrying the function capability set supported by the target AP in a Join Request message TLV (TLV).

The determining whether the set of functional capabilities supported by the target AP meets the configuration requirement of the AC includes:

Receiving a Join Request message sent by the target AP;

acquiring a functional capability set supported by the target AP from the Join Request message;

acquiring a target function capability set required by configuration of the AC to be issued to a target AP;

And judging whether the functional capability set supported by the target AP meets the configuration requirement of the AC or not according to the matching result of the functional capability set supported by the target AP and the target functional capability set.

Wherein the sending the updated version to the target AP includes:

And sending a notification of the updated version to the target AP through a Join Response message.

In another case, the determining whether the set of functional capabilities supported by the target AP meets the configuration requirement of the AC includes:

When the configuration of the AC changes, acquiring a functional capability set supported by a target AP;

Acquiring a target function capability set required by the AC after configuration change;

Wherein the step of sending the updated version to the target AP further comprises:

and sending a notification triggering the update version of the target AP to the target AP.

Wherein, before sending the updated version to the target AP, the method further comprises:

the updated version is obtained locally from the AC or from the cloud.

The embodiment of the disclosure also provides a method for managing the AP, which is applied to the AP, and includes:

Acquiring a supported functional capability set of the AP;

and sending the supported functional capability set of the AP to an AC, so that the AC judges whether the configuration requirement of the AC is met according to the supported functional capability set of the AP.

Embodiments of the present disclosure also provide an AC including:

The judging module is used for judging whether the functional capability set supported by the target AP meets the configuration requirement of the AC or not;

And the sending module is used for sending the updated version to the target AP when the updated version is not satisfied, so that the target AP is updated according to the updated version.

The AC further includes:

The receiving module is used for receiving a first message sent by a target AP, wherein the first message carries a functional capability set supported by the target AP.

The judging module acquires a functional capability set supported by a target AP according to a Join Request message received from the target AP;

The acquisition module is used for acquiring a target function capability set required by the configuration of the AC to be issued to the target AP;

and the judging module is used for judging whether the functional capability set supported by the target AP meets the configuration requirement of the AC according to the matching result of the functional capability set supported by the target AP and the target functional capability set.

The acquisition module is used for acquiring a functional capability set supported by the target AP when the configuration of the AC changes;

The acquisition module is also used for acquiring a target functional capability set required by the AC after the configuration is changed;

The embodiment of the disclosure also provides an AP, which includes:

an acquisition module, configured to acquire a supported functional capability set of the AP;

And the sending module is used for sending the supported functional capability set of the AP to the AC so that the AC judges whether the configuration requirement of the AC is met according to the functional capability set supported by the AP.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments consistent with the specification and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the specification.

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a method for managing an AP according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a wireless network architecture according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

Detailed Description

Reference will now be made in detail to exemplary embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. When the following description refers to the accompanying drawings, the same numbers in different drawings refer to the same or similar elements, unless otherwise indicated. The implementations described in the following exemplary examples do not represent all implementations consistent with the present specification. Rather, they are merely examples of apparatus and methods consistent with some aspects of the present description as detailed in the accompanying claims.

The terminology used in the description presented herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the description. As used in this specification and the appended claims, the singular forms "a," "an," and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It should also be understood that the term "and/or" as used herein refers to and encompasses any or all possible combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.

It should be understood that although the terms first, second, third, etc. may be used in this specification to describe various information, these information should not be limited to these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one type of information from another. For example, the first information may also be referred to as second information, and similarly, the second information may also be referred to as first information, without departing from the scope of the present description. The word "if" as used herein may be interpreted as "at … …" or "at … …" or "in response to a determination" depending on the context.

In order to solve the problem of network compatibility caused by the mismatch of version functions due to the fact that versions are different between the AC and the AP or between the AP and the AP, the versions of the APs can be forcedly matched through the AC. And packaging the matched AP version in the AC version, when the AP is on line, carrying out matching judgment on the current running version of the AP by the AC, and if the current running version of the AP is not matched, forcing the AP to be updated into the matched version stored on the AC for solving.

However, when implementing the above method, the following problems still exist:

the corresponding AP version needs to be packaged in the ac version, otherwise, the AP cannot be upgraded forcefully. While an AC may correspond to multiple AP models, each AP model may be a separate version of the file that may occupy a significant amount of the storage space of the AC.

2. It is practically unnecessary to upgrade the AP according to the version matching indifferently. Since the update version of the AP is actually at risk of some version corruption not being bootable, minimizing the AP upgrade operation is a safer approach. In the method, the AC can forcedly upgrade the AP no matter whether the current version function of the AP is enough or not, so that the risk of AP faults is improved.

3. If the version of the AC is updated, the whole network AP is caused to follow the update, on one hand, the risk of AP fault is brought to the network, and on the other hand, the service idle period of the wireless network is caused due to the overall update of the version. In practice, however, the AC upgrade does not necessarily require all APs to follow the upgrade, and for some of these APs, the current version already meets the actual use requirements, and the upgrade action is unnecessary.

In order to solve the above technical problems, an embodiment of the present disclosure provides a method for managing an AP and an AC, as shown in fig. 1, where the method includes:

S101, judging whether a functional capability set supported by a target AP meets the configuration requirement of an AC or not;

and S102, if not, sending an updated version to the target AP so that the target AP is updated according to the updated version.

In this embodiment, the network may include an AC, an AP, and a cloud (or a remote server), where the cloud may be a cloud platform, or may be another server capable of storing version files, as shown in fig. 2, where each AP is connected to the AC, and the AC is connected to the cloud.

In one case, if the AC supports gateway functions and the network is not very large in size, the AC may replace the gateway and switch devices.

In this embodiment, the execution subject that performs steps S101 to S102 may be AC, or another network device having an AC management function. For convenience of description, the execution subject is exemplified as AC in the present embodiment.

Before executing step S101, the AC may acquire the set of functional capabilities supported by the target AP according to a first message (for example, the first message is a Join Request message) sent by the target AP. In this embodiment, the target AP may refer to any AP connected to the AC.

In practical application, an administrator may set different instructions in the AC/AP to represent different functional capabilities, and in the first message sent by the target AP to the AC, the set of functional capabilities supported by the target AP may be represented by carrying an instruction set.

In one implementation, the first message may be a Join Request message, and the TLV of the Join Request message carries the functional capability set supported by the target AP.

Typically, when the target AP joins the AC, a Join Request message is sent to apply for joining to the AC, so that the AC may acquire the functional capability set of the target AP when joining the AC through the target AP.

In this embodiment, the AC may determine that the AP needs to support those functional capabilities according to its own configuration, and after acquiring the functional capability set of the target AP in step S101, the AC may acquire the target functional capability set according to its own configuration (the configuration to be issued to the target AP) (i.e., the AC determines that the functional capability set needs to be supported by the AP according to its own configuration).

The AC utilizes the functional capability set of the target AP to be matched with the target functional capability set, if the matching result is that the functional capability set of the target AP contains the target functional capability set, the target AP can meet the configuration requirement of the AC, and at the moment, even if the version of the target AP is an old version, the version of the target AP can not be updated.

Therefore, in the scheme, whether the version of the AP is required to be updated is judged not by the new version and the old version of the AP, but the version of the AP is not required to be updated on the premise of meeting the requirement according to whether the functions supported by the AP meet the requirement of the AC.

In this embodiment, when the AC matches the functional capability set of the target AP with the target functional capability set, the matching result may be that the functional capability set of the target AP does not include (or does not include all) the target functional capability set, which indicates that the function of the target AP does not meet the requirement of AC configuration.

At this point, the AC may instruct the target AP to make a version upgrade.

In one embodiment, the target AP sends a Join Request message carrying a function capability set of the target AP to the AC, and the AC obtains the function capability set of the target AP according to the Join Request message according to the above process, and determines that the function in the target AP does not meet the requirement of AC configuration according to a matching result of the function capability set of the AC and the function capability set of the target AP, where the AC may instruct the target AP to perform version upgrade.

In one example, the AC may send a notification of the updated version to the target AP via a Join Response message sent to the target AP. That is, the AC may instruct the target AP to perform a version upgrade before the target AP joins the AC.

In one implementation, according to an upgrade procedure specified by the CAPWAP protocol, the AC sends information notifying an update version (the information may be information notifying the target AP to force a downlink) to the target AP, the target AP downloads according to the information notifying the update version, and then triggers an image download protocol standard upgrade procedure in the process of re-uploading by the target AP, and completes version update.

In step S102, in the process of instructing the target AP to perform version upgrade, the AC may locally obtain an updated version of the target AP and send the updated version to the target AP to instruct the updated version of the target AP; in another example, to save storage space of the AC and avoid that the updated version stored in the AC is an outdated version, the AC may obtain the updated version of the target AP from the cloud and send the obtained updated version to the target AP to indicate the updated version of the target AP. The AC may further determine whether the updated version of the AP acquired from the cloud is used by the AP, and if the updated version of the AP acquired from the cloud is not used by the AP after the preset time is exceeded, delete the updated version of the AP acquired from the cloud to release the storage resource of the AC.

According to the embodiment, when the AC determines that the functional capability set of the target AP does not meet the AC configuration requirement, the updated version of the target AP can be obtained from the cloud and sent to the target AP, so that the AC does not need to additionally utilize a storage space to store the updated version, and the storage space of the AC is saved.

In another embodiment, the target AP may have been connected to the AC at a previous time, and during the network operation, the configuration of the AC changes, and when the configuration of the AC changes, the functions supported by the corresponding target AP may also change accordingly.

At this time, the AC may acquire a target capability set required by the AC after the configuration is changed (i.e., a capability set required by the AC to be supported by the AP), and match the current capability set supported by the target AP, and obtain a matching result.

In one case, the matching result is that the function capability set currently supported by the target AP includes the target function capability set required by the AC, which indicates that the target AP can still support the functions required by the AC even if the AC configuration is changed, and the target AP does not need to update the version configuration.

In another case, the matching result is that the function capability set currently supported by the target AP does not include the target function capability set required by the AC, which indicates that the AC changes due to configuration, and the function in the target AP does not meet the requirement of the AC, and the AC indicates the updated version of the target AP.

Also, in this embodiment, when the AC configuration changes and an updated version of the target AP is required to be accessed, the AC may send a notification to the target AP that triggers the updated version of the target AP.

And, the AC may obtain the updated version from the local or obtain the updated version from the cloud and send the updated version to the target AP, so that the target AP updates according to the updated version. Moreover, obtaining the updated version from the cloud may prevent the updated version stored in the AC from being an out-of-date version.

According to the embodiment, the AC can perform functional verification on the AP which is requested to be accessed to instruct the AP to perform version upgrade or not, and also can perform functional verification on the AP which is accessed to the AC to perform version upgrade or not.

Correspondingly, in order to cooperate with the implementation of the scheme, the embodiment of the disclosure further provides a method for managing the AP, where the method is applied to the AP, and the method includes:

Acquiring a supported functional capability set of the AP;

The AP may determine which functions are supported by the AP through a port scan, a software scan, a protocol scan, a hardware scan, and the like, and obtain an identifier set according to identifiers corresponding to the functions, where the identifier set is a functional capability set supported by the AP.

The AP may send the set of functional capabilities supported by the AP to the AC via the first message.

In one implementation, the first message is a Join Request message, and the AP adds a TLV field to the Join Request message, and uses the TLV field to carry the functional capability set supported by the target AP.

Based on the above method embodiments, the disclosure further provides an AC, which includes:

The AC further includes: the receiving module is used for receiving a first message sent by a target AP, wherein the first message carries a functional capability set supported by the target AP.

The embodiment of the disclosure also provides an AP, which includes:

The foregoing describes specific embodiments of the present disclosure. Other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims. In some cases, the actions or steps recited in the claims can be performed in a different order than in the embodiments and still achieve desirable results. In addition, the processes depicted in the accompanying figures do not necessarily require the particular order shown, or sequential order, to achieve desirable results. In some embodiments, multitasking and parallel processing are also possible or may be advantageous.

Other embodiments of the present description will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein. This specification is intended to cover any variations, uses, or adaptations of the specification following, in general, the principles of the specification and including such departures from the present disclosure as come within known or customary practice within the art to which the specification pertains. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope and spirit of the specification being indicated by the following claims.

It is to be understood that the present description is not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown in the drawings, which have been described above, and that various modifications and changes may be made without departing from the scope thereof. The scope of the present description is limited only by the appended claims.

The foregoing description of the preferred embodiments is provided for the purpose of illustration only, and is not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure, since any modifications, equivalents, improvements, etc. that fall within the spirit and principles of the disclosure are intended to be included within the scope of the disclosure.

Claims

1. A method of managing an AP, the method being applied to an AC, the method comprising:

Before a target AP joins the AC, judging whether a functional capability set supported by the target AP meets the configuration requirement of the AC;

If not, the updated version of the target AP is sent to the target AP, so that the target AP carries out version updating according to the updated version;

If yes, not carrying out version update on the target AP;

Receiving a Join Request message sent by the target AP;

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

And receiving a first message sent by a target AP, wherein the first message carries a functional capability set supported by the target AP.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the first message comprises: and carrying the function capability set supported by the target AP in a Join Request message TLV (TLV).

4. The method of claim 1, comprising, prior to said sending the updated version to the target AP:

5. The method of claim 1, wherein prior to sending the updated version to the target AP, the method further comprises:

the updated version is obtained locally from the AC or from the cloud.

6. A method of managing an AP, the method being applied to an AP, the method comprising:

before the AP joins an AC, acquiring a supported functional capability set of the AP;

The supported function capability set of the AP is sent to the AC, so that the AC judges whether the configuration requirement of the AC is met according to the supported function capability set of the AP, if not, an updated version of the AP is sent to the AP, and the AP carries out version updating according to the updated version; if yes, not carrying out version update on the AP;

Wherein the sending the supported set of functional capabilities of the AP to the AC comprises:

and the AP sends a Join Request message to the AC, wherein the Join Request message carries the functional capability set supported by the AP.

7. An AC, the AC comprising:

The judging module is used for judging whether the functional capability set supported by the target AP meets the configuration requirement of the AC before the target AP joins the AC;

A sending module, configured to send an updated version of the target AP to the target AP when the updated version is not satisfied, so that the target AP performs version update according to the updated version;

If yes, not carrying out version update on the target AP;

8. The AC of claim 7, wherein the AC further comprises:

9. An AP, the AP comprising:

an acquisition module, configured to acquire a set of supported functional capabilities of the AP before the AP joins the AC;

A sending module, configured to send a set of supported functional capabilities of the AP to the AC, so that the AC determines whether the configuration requirement of the AC is met according to the set of supported functional capabilities of the AP, and if not, sends an updated version of the AP to the AP, so that the AP performs version update according to the updated version; if yes, not carrying out version update on the AP;