International Business Machines Corporation

Anthony B Walker

Joel Erwin Geyer

Bradley S Trubey

A network topology generator identifies addresses and locations of multiple stations connected to a single access port of a communications network by determining a pair of identifiable network units between which the multiple stations are connected, sequentially deactivating access ports between the pairs of identifiable network units and issuing selected message frames to the stations whose location is unknown. The message frames returning from said stations are monitored to detect the state of the Address Recognized (AR) bit. If the bit is set, this indicates that the station is still on the network. Therefore, the deactivate/polling routine is repeated until the AR bit in a returned message is in an 'off' state, indicating that the station is not on the network and is connected to the last deactivated port.

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Durham, NC, United States of America

Anthony B Walker