The following concepts are involved in the EasyDeploy feature.
Commander
The Commander is a device that manages all the other devices on a network. It communicates with clients using User Datagram Protocol (UDP) unicast packets, with the default port number 60000.
The Commander provides the following functions:
- Saves client deployment information in a database.
- Delivers the file server IP address, user name, password, and names of system software packages, configuration files, license files, patch files, web page files, and user-defined files to clients.
- Manages all clients. The network administrator configures and queries device deployment information on the Commander.
Client
A client is a device managed by the Commander. Clients obtain information about required files from the Commander, download the files from the specified file server according to the obtained information, and then activate the downloaded files in the configured mode.
Group
A group is a series of clients that need to download the same files. Defining groups for clients further simplifies configuration. You can configure various groups on the Commander according to deployment of devices on your network.
- Built-in group: The clients are grouped based on the device types predefined on the Commander. The clients of the same type load the same system software package, patch file, web file, and other files.
- Customized group: The clients are grouped based on MAC addresses, ESNs, IP addresses, types, and models. You can group the clients according to network requirements. Different from the device types used in built-in groups, the device types used in customized groups are not predefined on the Commander, and they are the types of newly developed clients.
File Server
A file server is an SFTP, FTP, or TFTP server that saves the files to be loaded to devices, including system software packages, configuration files, license files, patch files, and web page files.
NOTE: A file server must have sufficient space to save files. Before configuring an S series switch as a file server, ensure that its storage space is sufficient for the files.
DHCP Server
In unconfigured device deployment and faulty device replacement scenarios, a DHCP server allocates IP addresses to unconfigured devices.
Network Topology Collection
The network topology collection function is provided by the Commander using the Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) and Network Topology Discovery Protocol (NTDP). When this function is enabled on the Commander to deploy unconfigured devices, users do not need to manually collect such information as device's MAC address or ESN. After unconfigured devices are powered on and started, the Commander automatically collects device information and assigns client IDs to devices to bind device information with devices. That is, the Commander can collect network topology information and specify information of files to be downloaded based on the collected network topology information. After completing unconfigured device deployment using the network topology collection function, the Commander can also automatically replace faulty devices based on network topology information.
NDP
The Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) is a Huawei proprietary protocol used to collect information about neighboring devices, such as the interfaces connected to the neighboring devices and system software versions of the neighboring devices.
NDP packets are encapsulated in Ethernet-II frames and periodically transmitted with a multicast destination MAC address. A device creates and maintains an NDP table based on received NDP packets.
The NDP protocol defines two timers for maintaining the NDP table on a device:
- Update timer: When this timer expires, the device immediately sends an Update packet.
- Aging timer: If the device does not receive any NDP packet from a neighbor within the aging time, the device deletes the NDP entry matching the neighbor.
NTDP
The Network Topology Discovery Protocol (NTDP) is a Huawei proprietary protocol used to collect topology information within the configured scope on a network. The collected topology includes NDP entries.
NTDP packets are encapsulated in Ethernet-II frames. NTDP requests are periodically sent with a multicast destination MAC address, and NTDP responses are sent with a unicast destination MAC address.
As shown in Figure 1, SwitchA sends an NTDP request packet to collect topology information. After SwitchB receives the NTDP request packet, it immediately sends a response packet to SwitchA and forwards the request packet to SwitchC. SwitchC then performs the same operations as SwitchB. This process proceeds until all the devices on the network receive the NTDP request packet and send response packets to SwitchA. In this way, SwitchA obtains NDP entries and connection information of all devices and figures out the network topology based on the obtained information.
