Patent Application
20070064673
This invention related to the field of computer networking, and more specifically to the field of protocols for fixed-line and wireless networking.
Definitions
The rate at which wireless networks are being deployed is accelerating along with their size and ubiquity. While enterprises, carriers, government and municipality, to name a few, rush to deploy wireless networks, evolving technological standards, lack of flexibility, scalability, and mobility features in today's wireless products makes deployment of wireless networks a challenge.
Wireless networks based on 802.11/WiFi and 802.16/WiMax technology standards comprise a majority of current wireless deployments. Wireless access to wired networks and the Internet is provided by radio devices deployed at the edge of the network. 802.11 Access Points (AP) and 802.16 Base Stations (BS) are examples of these access devices. Using the terminology of CAPWAP, an IETF group defining protocols to address wireless network deployment needs, these access devices are called Wireless Termination Points (WTP).
To facilitate management of large scale wireless networks, deployments are migrating towards centralized management and control of wireless access devices. CAPWAP classifies the centralized architectures for wireless deployment into two categories—Local MAC, and Split MAC. The key distinction between these architectures is that the former terminates 802.11 or 802.16 MAC on the WTP, where as the latter transports wireless frames, potentially encrypted using wireless protocols to a centralized controller. Flexible and scalable support of these two centralized architectures, while providing other features such as security and mobility, needed for wireless deployment, requires flexible system and software designs. Some of the methods to achieve these goals are described in this invention.
WTPs may directly place the traffic received over access radio ports from wireless clients on to the network ports. Typically network ports are Ethernet ports, but other types of ports are possible to support—an example of which is a wireless mesh radio port. In
Alternatively, WTPs may place traffic received over radio ports from wireless clients on to Layer 2 or Layer 3 tunnels whose other end terminates on a device in the network. For example, in
An important feature of wireless networks is mobility. Mobility features preserve wireless client Layer 2 and/or Layer 3 connection to the network as the client moves its radio attachment point from one WTP to another. In 802.11 networks an ESS, identified by a SSID, represents the logical wireless LAN to which wireless clients may attach themselves and move between any of its BSSs (radio attachment) without necessarily severing the Layer 2 (or Layer 3) link between the client and the network.
For example, in
In another mobility scenario, wireless client 50 may move its radio attachment point from WTP 850 controlled by 550 to WTP 900 controlled by 300. In this case, controllers 550 and 300 need to coordinate the control of this movement while preserving the existing Layer 2 connection of the client 50.
In order to facilitate mobility, traffic from wireless clients is seamlessly transported from the WTP with client's radio attachment to a location in the network where it may logically enter the wired network or to be delivered to another client on the wireless network. In centralized wireless network architectures, the controller is responsible for setting up the necessary tunneling and forwarding state at one or more devices in the data path between a wireless client, other wireless clients and wired hosts in the network.
In this invention, these devices in the data path controlled by a Wireless Network Controller (WNC) are said to contain a logical entity called the Wireless Data Forwarder (WDF). Relative to each wireless client attachment to the wireless network, three WDFs are logically distinguished
P-WDF—the WDF element controlled by a WNC where its traffic can be placed on the network port of the WDF directly.
Tunnel setup to support mobility may take time. This time—the tunnel setup latency—should be minimized or eliminated in order to prevent service disruption, and packet loss that results in lower quality of service for wireless clients that use voice services built over the wireless network. Further aggravating latency due to tunnel setup, a mobile client may be required to authenticate at its new radio attachment point. In 802.11 networks this authentication uses 802.1X which may take many seconds to complete, where as requirements of voice clients are of the order of tens of milliseconds.
Standard mechanisms such as 802.11i pre-authentication, and developing standards such as 802.11r attempt to address the authentication latency. With these standards, a wireless client (40 in
As described above, communication between WNCs and WDFs, and between WNCs is necessary to provide wireless network features such as mobility. Such communication needs to be appropriately protected using cryptographic mechanisms. It also should transfer appropriate security state and provide mechanisms to minimize the latency caused by tunnel setup or authentication required as the wireless client roams from one WTP to another in the wireless network.
Current art in the wireless networking field is deficient in flexibility, and protocols to support large scale 802.11/802.16 wireless networks. Although CAPWAP, LWAPP and Mobile IP mechanisms may serve some of the needs that this invention is designed to meet, none will provide flexible, scalable and secure mobility for these wireless networks.
This invention comprises flexible and scalable methods for providing mobility for secure wireless networks. In accordance with embodiments of the invention, communications terminals are controlled by a Wireless Network Controller (WNC), each of which contains an entity referred to as the Wireless Data Forwarder (WDF). Relative to each wireless client attachment to the wireless network, three WDFs are logically distinguished:
A-WDF—the WDF element controlled by a WNC at the radio attachment point of the wireless client. For 802.11 networks, this is co-located with the AP (BSS) at which the client is currently associated to the network.
I-WDF—the WDF element controlled by a WNC, that is in the data path of the wireless client and where its traffic should not be placed on the network port of the WDF directly.
P-WDF—the WDF element controlled by a WNC where its traffic can be placed on the network port of the WDF directly.
The invention includes protocols and methods to facilitate message passing and other communication for such entities in order to permit communication from and to mobile wireless terminals. In particular, the invention enables mobile wireless clients to associate and reassociate with controllers in the network in a manner that does not disrupt on-going secure communications conducted with the wireless clients. These and other embodiments of the invention are further described herein.
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This invention describes systems and methods of logical wireless data forwarding for realizing large scale wireless networks.
Wireless Data Forwarding Architecture
As illustrated in
A PFE element (61) may have one or more access radio ports (613,614,615), and have one or more network service ports (611,612,613,616). Some radio ports are used to provide wireless client access (614,615) where as other radio ports (613) may be used as a network port. Certain PFE elements (62) may have only network ports (621-627) and no radio ports. The network ports may be configured to be members of some number of logical Layer 2 networks—i.e. Virtual LANs (VLANs). PFE element may also have certain capabilities—such as tunneling encapsulations supported, capacity with respect to number of tunnels. PFE also maintains the necessary forwarding state for wireless data forwarding.
In this invention, a WDF Control element of WCP configures a mode for a subset of wireless data flows it controls. A network administrator may configure a mode that applies to wireless data flows for each WTP, BSS, ESS, or VLAN or a combination thereof in the network. Three modes of wireless data forwarding, DDF, CDF and CHDF that provide increasing scalability of wireless data flow control for mobility are described below.
Illustrated in
Illustrated in
Illustrated in
Although it is not illustrated here, it is important to note that the architecture of this invention allows a given WDF at a WTP to select different modes of wireless data forwarding for different wireless data flows as configured by its primary WCP. A more common case would be a WDF supporting a single forwarding mode for all the data flows through it.
WDF Protocol
Illustrated in
WDF Protocol is transport independent—it may use CAPWAP protocol (600) to transfer its messages from a WNC (100) to WDF (400) which has for its primary controller. It may use Inter-WCP Protocol (900), later described in this invention, to transfer its messages from a WNC (100) to another WNC (not shown) indirectly controlling the WDFs for which the other WNC is the primary controller—in this case the other WNC serves as a WDF protocol proxy to the WDF (400). When a WDF is co-located with a WNC, it may use a local IPC (700) mechanism or API (800) to control the WDF. The WDF protocol may also use another protocol based on IP, TCP or UDP (1000) as a transport. The WDF protocol has no built-in mechanisms for protecting the integrity and confidentiality of its messages—instead, it relies on its transport protocol (600,900) to provide the necessary protection.
WNC 20 discovers the WDF elements (30,40,50) using a local configuration database (2000) or some other discovery mechanism such as that provided by this invention over Inter-WCP Protocol. WNC 20 and WDFs 30, 40 and 50 may boot up independently. The WDF Control element (1000) of WNC 20 engages in the several phases of the WDF protocol with the WDF element—Discovery (200), Tunnel Configuration (300), Client Forwarding State Configuration (400), Monitoring (500), and Teardown (600).
In the Discovery (200) phase, query messages are sent to the WDF elements. These messages are processed by the WDF Agent component of the WDF element. The query messages (D-30, D-40, D-50) request information about the WDF element which includes, but not limited to
The WDF Agents at the corresponding WDFs return the information requested via a query response message (RD-30,RD-40,RD-50).
Tunnels to support wireless station mobility are setup in advance based on configuration of a WNC (2000) or triggered (AA-Trigger 150) by a wireless client authentication and association to the wireless network. WDF Control performs the WDF selection process (described later in WDF Selection section of the invention) based on WNC configuration (2000), WDF information from the earlier discovery process, and the knowledge of wireless client Association WDF (A-WDF)—i.e. the WDF located at the WTP with the client radio attachment. Without loss of generality, this A-WDF could be WDF 30, and WDF 40 and WDF 50 are selected as I-WDF and P-WDF respectively for the wireless client.
The discovery process (200) continues where DF Control (1000) queries the WDFs—using another set of the query messages (D-30, D-40, D-50), selected for suitable tunnel endpoints. Response messages, for this set of messages (RD-30, RD-40,RD-50), contain the selected tunnel endpoint. WDF Agent can perform this selection based on local policy which might include load balancing among multiple tunnel types, reachability of the tunnel endpoint from the source or destination specified in the query message etc. Among other attributes, a endpoint query may request selection based on
Based on the endpoints selected, WDF Control configures tunnels (Tunnel 30-40, Tunnel-50) for wireless client data flows using tunnel configuration messages (TC-30, TC-40, TC-50). The same set of attributes of the data flow used for selection of the endpoint (e.g. VLAN, IP Subnet, BSS, Layer 3 Protocol, Multicast Group) specified in the tunnel configuration messages, so that only selected data flows use the tunnel. One aspect of the tunnel setup to be noted is that the tunnels are logical entities, shared by many wireless clients and data flows. In addition, a WDF Agent may map multiple tunnels setup using the configuration messages from its WNC to a single hardware tunnel.
Once the tunnels are set up, WDF Control (1000) updates the forwarding state associated with tunnels using Station Configuration (SC) messages (SC-30,SC-40,SC-50). This message enables the wireless client use of this tunnel. If data flows of a wireless client belong to multiple tunnels, as is the case for protocol (IP) based tunnels, WDF Control may use a split tunneling mode. In the split tunneling mode, multiple SC messages may be sent to add wireless client forwarding state to more than one tunnel. In one embodiment of this invention, IP traffic from the wireless clients with the same A-WDF may be using one IP-in-IP tunnel for IP traffic, and another GRE tunnel for non-IP traffic.
The WDFs, tunnels, and forwarding State are monitored (500) by the WDF Control (1000) element of WNC (20). WDF Control, as part of tunnel, client forwarding state configuration may have requested statistics to be collected. Alternatively, the PFE element may have detected packet errors (including decryption errors), or a new VLAN or IP Subnet is configured on a PFE network port. These events and statistics are communicated to the WDF Control (1000) by the WDFs using notifications (N-30, N-40, N-50). In the absence of notification or response to queries, WDF Control (1000) may mark the corresponding WDF as out of service, and configure another WDF with appropriate tunnels and forwarding state so that wireless network disruption is minimized.
Finally, the tunnels and forwarding state created can be deleted by WDF Control (1000) using teardown messages (T-30, T-40, T-50). Teardown typically happens because wireless clients move, or if a tunnel has been idle for a configured (2000) timeout. Where resources permit, tunnels may persist for the lifetime of the association between the WDF Control (1000) and the Agent (30,40,50).
Once tunnel configuration (300), and wireless client forwarding state configuration (400) are complete, wireless data traffic from the client can flow through the network. In the case when WDF 30 is A-WDF, WDF 40 is I-WDF, WDF 50 is P-WDF of the client, WDF 30 receives the client traffic over the air, tunnels to WDF 40 using Tunnel 30-40 which then tunnels to WDF 50 using Tunnel 40-50. WDF-40 is responsible for sending the client traffic over its PFEs' network port, potentially via a tunnel. This invention allows a null tunnel encapsulation type between WDFs; in this case traffic in that null tunnel uses native encapsulation of the PFE port which is typically the Ethernet or 802.2 SNAP/LLC frame format.
An important aspect of WDF protocol that may not be apparent from the above description, but would be obvious from the message formats specified in this invention, is that QoS attributes, filtering or classification rules, and security keys may be specified as part of the tunnel or forwarding state configuration. A few of these configurable attributes are
Each message contains a message header followed by one or more information elements that correspond to the message ID in the header. In addition, a WDF protocol message header contains a version, session ID, request and report sequence numbers.
The WDF Architecture and the WDF protocol, presented above in this invention, is flexible in accommodating a variety of WDF hardware and software capabilities and leveraging them to provide optimal wireless network services in a variety of network topologies.
WDF Selection, Tunnel and Client Forwarding State Configuration
An important function of WDF Control element of a WNC is selection of WDFs for a given wireless client flow. WDF Control methods described elsewhere in this invention ensure that forwarding tunnels (potentially null tunnels) exist for the wireless client traffic flow and creating forwarding state for the wireless client at the selected WDFs.
To set the stage for the WDF selection process of this invention,
In the above scenario, WDF 850 is directly to attached to VLAN 50 (VLAN-50), which for the purpose of this illustration is also the VLAN assigned to the client 50. When wireless client 50 associates to the wireless network, traffic for the wireless client may be placed by WDF 850 directly on to the wire—i.e. the P-WDF for the wireless client is the same as its A-WDF; no I-WDF would be necessary.
When Roaming-500 happens, the target of the roam (WDF 800) is not directly connected to the VLAN 50 assigned to the client. Instead, it is directly connected to VLAN 800 (VLAN-800). In this case, WDF Control element is responsible for choosing a P-WDF that is directly connected to VLAN 50 for wireless client 50. A suitable choice of P-WDF for this scenario would be WDF 550 co-located with WNC 550.
Alternatively, if Roaming-501 happens, the target of the roam (WDF 900) is not directly connected to VLAN 50 assigned to the client. Instead, it is directly connected to VLAN 900. In this case, a suitable choice of P-WDF for the wireless client is WDF 550 located at WNC 550, and a suitable choice, in Centralized Hierarchical forwarding mode, for I-WDF is WDF 600 co-located with Switch 600. In this scenario, WNC 300 and WNC 550 need to advertise their WDFs and coordinate their WDF protocol over Inter-WCP Protocol transport for setting up the necessary forwarding tunnels and client forwarding state—the mechanism for which is described later in this invention.
Clearly, WDF Control element's choice of WDFs for wireless client flows is a critical component of the wireless data forwarding described in this invention. The process by which WDF element makes this choice is illustrated by
WDF (500) address and priority information is administratively specified or discovered in a WNC configuration database (2000) is made available to WDF Control function (400). As an example of discovery, a WTP always contains a WDF element; a WNC may detect WDF elements based on its configuration and share it with other controllers in the wireless network.
Dynamic information (1000) about WDF elements (500) is discovered using the WDF Protocol—Discovery mechanism (3000) specified earlier—and is available to WDF Control (400). This dynamic information includes VLANs configured at WDF (500) PFE ports—VLAN 600, 700—and tunnel encapsulation types supported by the PFE at the WDF (500).
When a wireless client (50) associates, or re-associates—i.e. establishes or re-establishes its radio attachment to the wireless networks, WAA Control (100) element of WNC co-located with WDF Control element (400) notifies (Notification 110) the WDF Control element (400) about client (50) of the client's radio attachment (A-WDF), VLAN assigned and other relevant information such as QoS attributes, cryptographic keys required for processing client traffic, MAC Address of the radio attachment (e.g. 802.11 BSSID) etc.
A P-WDF of highest priority is then selected by P-WDF selection element (200) from among the WDF's with a PFE port configured with VLAN assigned to client (50). Based on forwarding mode, I-WDF may also be selected (300). As an optimization, selection of P-WDF and I-WDF may be avoided if the radio attachment of the client does not change the A-WDF for the client—this may happen, for example, when the client reattaches to a different radio on the same WTP.
Tunnel configuration between A-WDF and P-WDF or A-WDF and I-WDF along with I-WDF and P-WDF may be dynamically triggered based on P-WDF and I-WDF selection (Notification 120, Notification 130) if suitable tunnels do not exist between WDFs. Suitable tunnel configuration may have been triggered by another client that associated to the wireless network earlier for which the same WDFs (pairwise) were chosen or tunnels were pre-established based on configuration 2000 (Pre-con
In one embodiment of this invention, the configuration (2000) that results in pre-configuration of the tunnels (Pre-con
Finally forwarding state is configured (5000) is set up for the wireless client (50) based on the selected A-WDF, P-WDF and I-WDF information and the tunnels available as necessary between them. The client state is also stored (Store 150) by the WDF control (400) in its internal state tables (6000) for later use such as when the client re-establishes its radio attachment to a different WTP.
Without loss of generality of this invention, in order to address common wireless deployment scenarios and simplify wireless control flows, WDF Control element's WDF selection process may be endowed with administrative policy in the configuration database (2000). Based on policy, a WDF Control element may
Thus far the description of the invention primarily focused on the control flow between various logical components of the wireless network. To understand how the state configured at WDFs via WDF protocol affects wireless data flow, one needs to examine the data flow between WDFs that is illustrated in
The logical data flow in the figure shows, without loss of generality, two wireless clients (WS10, WS20). The result of control operations sets up a logical Layer 2 link between a client and the network—for example between WS10 and WC10, or WS20 and WC20 in the figure. As a wireless client roams and changes it radio attachment and consequently its A-WDF, and potentially its I-WDF and P-WDF elements, mobility feature provided using the mechanisms of this invention preserve this logical link.
For a wireless client, WS10 for example, its upstream data traffic to the network (DS in 802.11 terminology) flows through its A-WDF (100), optionally to its I-WDF (200) via tunnel Tun-1200 based on forwarding mode and then to its P-WDF (300) via tunnel Tun-2300 or via tunnel Tun-1300 directly to its P-WDF (300). A null tunnel is a degenerate case of tunneling where no tunnel encapsulation is necessary. To the rest of the wired network (N100), WS10 data traffic appears to originate at P-WDF (300).
Similarly for another (or the same) wireless client, WS20 for example, its downstream data traffic from the network flows through its P-WDF (600), optionally to its I-WDF (500) via tunnel Tun-5600 and then to its A-WDF (400) via tunnel Tun-4500 or via tunnel Tun-4600 directly to its A-WDF (400). Where the A-WDFs (100, 400) for the clients are the same and the clients are on the same VLAN, data from one wireless client (WS10) may flow to another (WS20) directly—in this invention such forwarding is controlled by administrative policy.
In short, the purpose of the control state set up by WDF Control elements of a controller at its WDFs (PFEs) is to enable the data flows described above.
PFE (1000) is a data plane element controlled by a WDF Control element via the WDF Agent element co-located with the PFE. Logically it may have a set of radio or service ports (RXS-10, TXS-10), and a set of network ports (RXN-10, and TXN-10). RXS-10 and TXS-10 could be the same physical port, but separately depicted in the picture to serve as ports where Layer 2 wireless (802.11, 802.16) frames are received and sent. Similarly, RXN-10 and TXN-10 could be the same set of network ports used for forwarding wireless client data traffic to the network and between the clients of a wireless network. These network ports may be wireless (802.11, 802.16), Ethernet or of another type. Although not shown in the
WDF Control element creates PFE state (2000) via the WDF protocol to the agent—the state includes tunnel configuration state, wireless client forwarding state and potentially other configuration (1100). The packet forwarding of the PFE (1000) is illustrated in the figure as Process P-3000. Unless a received frame (P-100) follows a valid flow specified in P-3000, the packet is dropped.
A PFE (1000) receives a wireless frame (P-100) via its access radio port. As shown by the check F-100, only a PFE (WDF) that is A-WDF for a client is allowed to receive frames over the RF medium. If local forwarding is allowed (F-400), the PFE checks its WDF type relative to the destination address of the frame (F-700). If the PFE is the A-WDF for the destination address of P-100, it forwards the frame to its destination over the RF medium via port TXS-10. Otherwise a tunnel is selected (F-800) for P-100, followed by encapsulation (F-900) configured for the tunnel (e.g. GRE, LWAPP, UDP), and forwarded (F-1000) over its network port TXN-10.
It is important to note that the tunnel selection process (F-800) be cognizant of the direction of the data flow i.e. to a wireless station (downstream, From-DS) or from a wireless station (upstream, to-DS). This is because tunnel selection (F-800) in this invention uses source address attribute of a frame (P-100) for upstream tunnel selection, where as it uses destination address attribute for downstream tunnel selection. For 802.11 frames this is known—otherwise the frame direction is indicated in an encapsulation header or tunnels created can be unidirectional. In addition, tunnel selection selects the most specific tunnel applicable for the data flow—for example, if a tunnel is configured for a VLAN, and the also configured for VLAN and a Protocol (e.g. IP-in-IP), the latter is chosen if the frame belongs to the protocol. If no suitable tunnel can be selected, the frame is dropped.
When a frame (P-100) is received by Process P-3000 of PFE 1000 from one of its network ports (RXN-10), its WDF is one of the following (as can derived from
In the above description related to
Another aspect, not illustrated in
For data forwarding purposes, downstream frames with broadcast/multicast destination addresses on a VLAN are replicated to each of the tunnels for which wireless client forwarding state exists. Upstream broadcast/multicast frames from a wireless client reach the client P-WDF which forwards the frame in the reverse—downstream direction—in addition to sending it over the wired network.
WDF Forwarding—Mobility with a Single WNC
Based on the WDF Architecture, WDF Protocol, WDF selection, tunnel and client forwarding state configuration mechanisms described in this invention, wireless data forwarding and mobility can be provided for the wireless networks with a single WNC. One way to think about WDF forwarding is that the forwarding is based on source information to a P-WDF relative to a wireless station, and then the traditional destination-based forwarding. It is important to note that WDF forwarding does not forward packets between VLANs except tunnels over multi-VLAN or routed networks are used to provide logical attachment of wireless clients to their assigned VLAN.
Wireless Authentication and Association with Single WNC
As indicated in the WDF protocol description, WDF Control element may configure tunnel or wireless client specific packet filters. One application of these filters is to extract relevant control messages for authentication and forward them to the controller. For example, 802.11 standards allow for encrypted authentication, and pre-authentication to reduce the authentication latency during roaming. However no mechanism is specified for forwarding this 802.1X (Ethernet Type 0x888e) or pre-authentication (Ethernet Type 0x88C7) frames to a controller when the controller is separated from the WTP receiving these frames by a Layer 3 (IP) network.
WDF Control, as part of its support for wireless authentication and pre-authentication, configures data filters at some or all of its WDFs (100, 200, 300) using WDF Protocol (650,750,850). These filters select the required authentication or pre-authentication frames received at a WDF. When packets are received from a wireless client (10) at a WDF—either the A-WDF (100), I-WDF (200) or P-WDF (300) of the association, rather than forwarding packets matching the filter using the normal data flow, the packets are placed in the WDF Protocol (600, 700, 800) and sent to the WDF Control element (5000). The WDF Control element (5000) forwards these frames to the WAA Control element (6000) which is responsible for processing (or forwarding) these messages. It may also generate (or forward) responses to the wireless client along the reverse path.
The above mechanism allows 802.11 pre-authentication frames, addressed to a potential future radio attachment address (BSSID) of the wireless client (10), to reach the controller resulting in establishment of security state prior to the client (10) roaming to the future radio attachment. This removes the authentication latency for faster roaming. In addition, re-authentication of the a client (10) may occur during the current session with the wireless network. These re-authentication frames (e.g. 802.1X) are received at a WDF and may be encrypted using wireless standards. Filters appropriately installed and forwarding using this mechanism, can redirect the decrypted frames from the WDF where the decryption function is implemented. This allows a flexible placement of the wireless encryption/decryption function in the wireless network—for example, such placement may be selected on a per-client, per-VLAN, or per-BSS basis.
The mechanism of the invention described above can be used in other applications some of which are
Single WNC based wireless network deployments are inadequate in providing the scalability and redundancy of wireless services in large scale, operational wireless networks. To serve this need, wireless networks are based on multiple WNCs that coordinate their operation in order to provide seamless wireless services. One example of such a service is roaming between WTPs connected to different WNCs. Another example is authentication and sharing of security state between controllers to provide faster roaming. One can envisage other services, such as redundancy between WNCs, load balancing, location, single point of management and features that can benefit from common methods and protocol between controllers.
This invention presents a protocol for Inter WCP communication—IWCPP—to address the above need. The protocol is executed between WNCs (each with a logical WCP) grouped into a community.
IWCPP (1000) is a protocol between the logical WCP elements (300, 400) of wireless controllers (WNC 100, 200) in a community. The community is established and managed using IWCPP Control application (1100) that runs over IWCPP (1000). This in turn enables other applications for scaling wireless features to multi-controller wireless networks. Example IWCPP applications are Mobility Control (1200), WLAN Database Synchronization (1300), RF Management (1400). IWCPP protocol may be transported by other protocols such as CAPWAP (500), TLS (600), TCP (700), UDP (800), IPSEC (900) and inherits their security properties. One a non-limiting embodiment of IWCPP runs over IETF standard TLS (600) protocol.
IWCPP Control is a special application of IWCPP that is responsible for control of IWCPP. Among other things it
HLEs at a WCP send and receive wireless control data to and from a remote HLE at another WCP using IWCPP. HLEs for mobility and security are described later in this invention.
A WCP Community (10000) is an administratively created group of WCPs (100, 200, 300) each with its own configuration database (1100, 1200, 1300). One member of the community (10000) is designated the master WCP (M-WCP 100) by administrative action (110). Similarly, other WCPs in the community (200, 300) are designated members of the community (m-WCP 120, m-WCP 130) and are also provisioned with the M-WCP (100) address (220, 320). Each member of the community stores the information about other WCPs in the community—called the directory—in its configuration database (1100, 1200, 1300). The master WCP (100) is also a member of the community with respect to coordination of wireless features across the community of WCPs.
A member WCP (200, 300) uses the IWCPP transport protocol (e.g. TLS) to connect to the M-WCP (100) of the community and presents appropriate credentials. In the case of TLS, an X.509 certificate is presented as part of the TLS connection setup. When another m-WCP (200, 300) attempts a connection to M-WCP (100), it does not immediately accept the connection (12), but stores the credential in its configuration database for administrative approval (1101). If the credential has already been approved, it allows the connection (13). While PKI infrastructure allows a credential (X.509 certificate) to be validated, administrative approval as indicated above would allow an ACL of who is allowed to join the community of WCPs. Alternatively, an administrator may designate automatic approval to join the community if the credential presented can be authenticated and trusted (e.g. a WCP presents a signed message using a public key in an X.509 Certificate, signed by a trusted Certificate Authority), contains a specific attribute and/or attribute value.
Following successful connection (13), a m-WCP (200, 300) may request (14) the directory of WCPs in the community (10000). M-WCP (100) updates the m-WCP (200, 300) with the current directory information as a response (15). The directory may also be updated by M-WCP (100) sending a directory update (16) to m-WCPs (200, 300) when the directory information changes at the master. An example of such a change would be when another WCP is allowed to join the community. The receivers of the directory (200, 300) stores it their respective configuration databases (1200, 1300) for use by the IWCPP HLE. Only the M-WCP (100) of the community is allowed to respond to directory requests and send updates to other members of the community, where as each m-WCP (200, 300) also maintain the directory in their configuration databases (1200, 1300). Information contained in the directory includes
When a HLE (HLE-A 2200) at a WCP (200), say the Mobility Control HLE, sends a message (Data 22) to its peer HLE-A (3200) at WCP (300), IWCPP Control HLE establishes a connection (21) between the WCPs, if one does not exist already. The data (22) is queued locally until the connection is established (21) at which time it is sent to the peer WCP (300) and received at the corresponding HLE (3200). In another case when a HLE (HLE-B 2300, HLE-C 2400) at a WCP (200) sends messages (Data 23, Data 44), to peer HLEs (HLE-B 3300, HLE-C 4400), the IWCPP connection may already be established. In this case, the message is sent without the connection setup delay.
Connections between WCPs are dynamically established as described above. If a connection is idle for more than a configured period of time (25), it is disconnected (26). Where resources permit, and for WCPs controlling WTPs that are neighbors of each other over the RF medium, this idle timeout may be infinite.
IWCPP and RF Neighborhood
In order for a WCP to assist HLEs, in particular the HLEs that support mobility and security across WNCs in the community, IWCPP identification (Community Name, WCP ID) and its endpoint (IP/DNS, TCP Port) address may be advertised over the air in standard but extensible or additional management frames in addition to the radio attachment endpoint address (e.g. BSSID in 802.11) that is typically advertised. As an example, in 802.11 wireless networks, an information element can carry this information. Such an advertisement provides the mapping between the radio attachment and the WNCs controlling the WTP containing the attachment point to other WTPs that may be controlled by another WNC in a WCP community. RF Data Collection mechanisms at neighboring WTPs forward this mapping to their primary WNC which in turn leverages this information for coordinating wireless features across multiple controllers in the community.
This invention describes two applications of this mechanism later.
Wireless Authentication and Association with Multiple WNCs
In the above scenario, as illustrated in
Authentication data frames to the wireless client (1300) from WAA Control (800) at WCP (300) follow the reverse of the above path.
In order to optimize the pre-authentication mechanism described above and sharing of association state below, as illustrated in
Subsequent pre-authentication data frames received at WCP 300 are sent to, for example, WCP 400 in an IWCPP data frame (360) using the connection already established (320).
The mechanisms of this invention described above provide pre-authentication and association state transfer mechanisms in a large wireless network controlled by cooperating WNCs organized as a WCP community. These mechanisms avoid the re-association latency, of which establishment of security state is a big component, in wireless client roaming in these types of networks.
The IWCPP messages for pre-authentication and transfer of association state, including security state and related configuration, are not illustrated in
WDF Forwarding—Mobility with Multiple WNCs
WDF Forwarding and mobility support in multi WNC wireless network is similar to that of a single controller, except that the WDF Control element on a WNC considers WDFs with other primary controllers in the community for its WDF selection. In particular, the P-WDF selection.
As illustrated in
During the WDF selection process described earlier in this invention, a WDF Control element (1000) of a WCP (800) executes the WDF Protocol over IWCPP (1800) as transport using IWCPP Mobility HLEs (700, 900) to communicate with its peer—the WDF Control element (600)—at another WCP in the community (200). The peer (600) in turn executes WDF Protocol (1750) with WDF elements (1300) it directly controls over a transport such as CAPWAP.
As a scalability optimization to minimize the number of WDFs advertised (1300, 1301, 1302, 1303), a WDF Control element may aggregate its WDFs and advertise a single WDF (WDF 2100) to other WNCs in the community. This mechanism allows multiple WDFs to be effectively shared while preserving the generality of the invention.
In another embodiment of this invention that provides support for Centralized-Hierarchical wireless data forwarding mode, a WCP may only advertise a WDF co-located with it and not any WDFs located on a WTP it controls to other WCPs in its community. This invention does not require a special WDF advertisement protocol message, although it does not preclude it. A WDF control element at a WCP may assume the existence of a WDF element at another WCP and attempt to open a connection to the WDF agent co-located with the other WCP thereby discovering it.
Routing over Remote Interfaces using WDF Protocol
In routed networks (e.g. IP Networks), router elements execute a routing protocol, such as PIM, OSPF, BGP between them to
The WDF Protocol presented in this invention extends the routing framework where by a router element, such as WDF Control element of a WCP, executes routing protocols over remote network interfaces. These interfaces could be wired or wireless network interfaces.
In one embodiment of this invention illustrated in
The implementations and enhancements described in the foregoing are for example purposes only. Many variants, alternatives, and modifications shall be apparent to those skilled in the art.
The present application claims priority to Bhandaru et. al's U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/660,699 entitled FLEXIBLE, SCALABLE, WIRELESS DATA FORWARDING AND MOBILITY FOR SECURE WIRELESS NETWORKS filed Mar. 10, 2005, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60660699 | Mar 2005 | US |
