Alcatel Lucent

Shanawaz Shaik

Xiong Xue

Ramaswamy Subramanian

Kugendran Sabaratnam

Mike Vihtari

Ivaylo Tanouchev

Tiru Kamar Sheth

Matthew Yee

Ivy Mao

Steve Morin

Steve Rock

Tiru Kumar Sheth

Justin Newcomb

Harinath Rachapalli

Aizaz Alam

Dai Truong

Xiaoning Wang

An apparatus, method and machine readable storage medium, for an authentication server such as a RADIUS server, for authenticating a subscriber are disclosed. The method comprises: receiving a request message including a plurality of attributes such as attribute value pairs (AVPs) having respective attribute names and respective attribute values; retrieving an authentication profile object; identifying a plurality of authentication attributes to use for authentication from the authentication profile object; extracting the plurality of authentication attribute values from the message; pre-processing one or more of the extracted attribute values; and authenticating the request message based on the pre-processed extracted attribute values.

Flexible authentication using multiple radius AVPs

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method, network node, and non-transitory machine-readable storage medium including one or more of the following: receiving, at an authentication server, a request message including a plurality of attributes having respective attribute names and respective attribute values; retrieving a profile object that identifies a first attribute name; reading a first attribute value from a first attribute of the plurality of attribute values, wherein the first attribute carries the first attribute name; generating a first subscription identifier that carries the first attribute value; identifying a first subscriber profile that stores the first subscription identifier; and authenticating the request message based on the first subscriber profile.

Flexible and generalized authentication

An apparatus, method and machine readable storage medium, for an authentication server such as a RADIUS server, for authenticating a subscriber are disclosed. The method comprises: receiving at the authentication server, a request message including a plurality of attributes having respective attribute names and respective attribute values; retrieving from a profile storage, an authentication profile object; identifying a plurality of authentication attributes to use for authentication, including a respective associated priority value, from the authentication profile object; extracting attribute values from the request message, corresponding to each authentication attribute; and attempting to authenticate the request message based on each of the extracted attribute value in order of a respective associated priority value until the authentication attempt is successful.

Priority based radius authentication

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method and related network node including: receiving, at the network device, a traffic message including an IP address; identifying the traffic message as belonging to a new session; generating a request message based on identifying the traffic message as belonging to a new session, wherein the request message includes the IP address; transmitting the request message to a policy server; and receiving, from the policy server, a policy message including a policy. Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method and related network node including: receiving, at the policy server, a request message from a network device, the request message including a subscriber IP and a network device identifier; identifying a subscriber session associated with the IP address; recording the network device identifier in association with the subscriber session; retrieving a policy associated with the subscriber session; and transmitting the policy to the network device.

Handling of auxiliary NAS

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method performed by a policy and charging rules node (PCRN), the method including: receiving a RADIUS accounting request (ACR) start message from a network access server (NAS); establishing a RADIUS session with the NAS; applying rules by a rules engine to information in the ACR start message to determine a traffic detection function (TDF) to be updated; establishing a Sd session with the TDF; and binding the Sd session to the RADIUS session.

Binding of SD messages with radius messages

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method performed by a policy and charging rules node (PCRN), the method including: sending a first Sy spending limit request (SLR) to an online charging system (OCS) without specifying any policy counters; receiving from the OCS a first spending limit answer (SLA) including policy counters and associated status reports for a subscriber; creating an Sy session; determining required policy counters based upon the policy counter statuses; sending a second Sy SLR to the OCS for the required policy counters; and receiving a second SLA including status reports for the required policy counters.

Sy session creation and recovering from inconsistent session state between PCRF and OCS

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method performed by a policy and charging rules node (PCRN), the method comprising: receiving an event trigger from a policy and charging enforcement node (PCEN) indicating that a subscriber is out of credit; installing temporary PCC rules to handle the out of credit status of the subscriber; receiving an indication that the subscriber has completed a reallocation of credit action; uninstalling the temporary PCC rules and restoring the original PCC rules after receiving an indication of reallocation of credit.

Temporarily disable out-of-credit PCC rule

A method, apparatus, and machine readable storage medium is disclosed for handling Network-Request-Support (NRS) and Bearer Control Mode (BCM) at a Policy and Charging Rules Node (PCRN) and a Evolved Packet Core (EPC) gateway node. Embodiments maintain corresponding buffers for NRS values at the PCRN and the gateway and maintain synchronization between them. A gateway sends a credit control request (CCR) message to a PCRN and updates a local NRS buffer at the gateway when a successful credit control acknowledgement (CCA) response is received from the PCRN. Similarly, the PCRN updates a local NRS buffer at the PCRN when a successful credit control acknowledgement (CCA) response is sent to the gateway.

Handling of NRS and BCM in PCRF and GW

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method and related network node including one or more of the following: selecting a connection of a plurality of connections; testing the selected connection to determine whether the selected connection is usable; and based on a determination that the selected connection is not usable: closing the selected connection and at least one additional connection of the plurality of connections, and reestablishing the selected connection and the at least one additional connection.

Automatic connection recovery

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method performed by a policy and charging rules node of provisioning event triggers. The method may include: receiving, from a requesting node, a request to provision a set of event triggers on a primary gateway; forwarding, to the primary gateway, the set of event triggers; storing the set of event triggers in association with a session; detecting a handover of the session; determining a new primary gateway; and forwarding, to the new primary gateway, the set of event triggers. The method may further include: receiving a message; determining whether the message includes the same set of event triggers; if the message includes the same set of event triggers, refraining from sending the set of event triggers to the primary gateway; and if the message includes a different set of event triggers, forwarding the different set of event triggers to the primary gateway.

Growing community of inventors

Ottawa, Canada

Shanawaz Shaik