Provisioning of multiple wireless devices by an access point

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9510130-B2
Application number	US-201414484278-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 12, 2014
Priority date	May 28, 2013
Publication date	Nov 29, 2016
Grant date	Nov 29, 2016

Abstract

An aspect of the present disclosure enables an access point (AP) to conveniently provision multiple wireless devices. In an embodiment, the AP may normally operate in a secure mode to disregard non-secure provisioning requests from wireless devices. However, upon receipt of a request to accept provisioning requests from multiple wireless devices, the AP permits multiple wireless devices to be provisioned via the AP, in response to corresponding provisioning requests received from the respective wireless devices. The request to accept may be generated upon pressing of a push button provided on the AP, which may be referred to as a group provisioning button since multiple wireless devices are provisioned in response to pressing of that button.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of provisioning multiple wireless devices, said method being performed in an access point (AP), said method comprising:
operating in a secure mode to disregard a first plurality of non-secure provisioning requests from wireless devices, but accept secure provisioning requests in view of operating in said secure mode;
receiving, after said operating, a first command to accept non-secure provisioning requests from multiple wireless devices;
receiving a second plurality of non-secure provisioning requests from respective ones of multiple wireless devices, after receipt of said first command;
provisioning, by said AP, each of said multiple wireless devices in response to the corresponding non-secure provisioning request of said second plurality of non-secure provisioning requests, in view of having received said first command,
wherein said provisioning comprises providing parameters which enable each of said multiple wireless devices to comply with security measures enforced by said AP to operate in said secure mode; and
conducting secure layer- 2 communication in said secure mode with each of the provisioned wireless devices, based on said parameters provided as a part of said provisioning.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said first command is generated by the pressing of a push button provided on said AP, whereby said multiple wireless devices are provisioned upon receiving a signal indicating pressing of said push button provided on said AP.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein said first command is generated by a device external to said AP.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein said provisioning of each of said wireless devices comprises:
allowing the wireless device to associate with said AP according to a non-secure approach requiring no security credentials to establish non-secure layer- 2 connectivity;
establishing a secure channel over said non-secure layer- 2 connectivity, said secure channel being provided on a layer above said layer- 2 ; and
transferring security credentials of said AP to the wireless device over said secure channel.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein said secure channel is implemented using SSL on TCP/IP layer.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of said provisioning requests is received in a vendor specific information element of a probe request frame.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein said method further comprises responding to each of said provisioning requests with a probe response frame, wherein contents of said probe response frame enables the corresponding wireless device to be associated with said AP without providing any security credentials.

8. The method of claim 4 , wherein said provisioning further comprises:
transmitting a list of said multiple wireless devices to an external system; and
receiving from said external system an indication of a set of authorized wireless devices in said multiple wireless devices that are allowed to be provisioned,
wherein said establishing and said transferring are performed only for the set of authorized wireless devices specified in said indication.

9. A non-transitory machine readable storage medium storing one or more sequences of instructions in an access point (AP) for provisioning multiple wireless devices, wherein execution of said one or more sequences of instructions by one or more processors contained in said AP enables said AP to perform the actions of:
operating in a secure mode to disregard a first plurality of non-secure provisioning requests from wireless devices, but accept secure provisioning requests in view of operating in said secure mode;
receiving, after said operating, a first command to accept non-secure provisioning requests from multiple wireless devices;
receiving a second plurality of non-secure provisioning requests from respective ones of multiple wireless devices, after receipt of said first command;
provisioning, by said AP, each of said multiple wireless devices in response to the corresponding non-secure provisioning request of said second plurality of non-secure provisioning requests, in view of having received said first command,
wherein said provisioning comprises providing parameters which enable each of said multiple wireless devices to comply with security measures enforced by said AP to operate in said secure mode; and
conducting secure layer- 2 communication in said secure mode with each of the provisioned wireless devices, based on said parameters provided as a part of said provisioning.

10. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein said first command is generated by the pressing of a push button provided on said AP.

11. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein said first command is generated by a device external to said AP.

12. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein said provisioning of each of said wireless devices comprises:
allowing the wireless device to associate with said AP according to a non-secure approach requiring no security credentials to establish non-secure layer- 2 connectivity;
establishing a secure channel over said non-secure layer- 2 connectivity; and
transferring security credentials of said AP to the wireless device over said secure channel.

13. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 12 , wherein said secure channel is implemented using SSL on TCP/IP layer.

14. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein each of said provisioning requests is received in a vendor specific information element of a probe request frame.

15. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 14 , further comprising instructions for causing said AP to:
respond to each of said provisioning requests with a probe response frame, wherein contents of said probe response frame enables the corresponding wireless device to be associated with said AP without providing any security credentials.

16. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 12 , further comprising instructions for causing said AP to:
transmit a list of said multiple wireless devices to an external system; and
receive, from said external system, an indication of a set of authorized wireless devices in said multiple wireless devices that are allowed to be provisioned,
wherein said establishing and said transferring are performed only for the set of authorized wireless devices specified in said indication.

17. A system comprising:
a plurality of wireless devices; and
an access point (AP) to provision each of said plurality of wireless devices, said AP comprising:
a wireless interface enabled to receive provisioning requests from each of said plurality of wireless devices; and
a provisioning block enabled to:
operate in a secure mode to disregard a first plurality of non-secure provisioning requests from respective wireless devices, but accept secure provisioning requests in view of operating in said secure mode;
receive a first command to accept non-secure provisioning requests from said plurality of wireless devices;
receive a second plurality of non-secure provisioning requests from respective ones of said plurality of wireless devices, after receipt of said first command;
provisioning, by said AP, each of said plurality of wireless devices in response to the corresponding non-secure provisioning request, in view of having received said first command, wherein said provisioning comprises providing parameters which enable each of said multiple wireless devices to co

Assignees

• Viswanathan Prashant
• Batra Vishal
• Vyas Pankaj
• Gainspan Corp

Inventors

• Viswanathan Prashant
• Batra Vishal
• Vyas Pankaj

Classifications

• H04W12/00

  Security arrangements; Authentication; Protecting privacy or anonymity · CPC title

• H04W4/001 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04W8/20

  Transfer of user or subscriber data · CPC title

• H04W84/12

  WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks] · CPC title

• H04W12/50

  Secure pairing of devices · CPC title