US 11,722,578 B2
Captive portal redirection by devices with no internet protocol connectivity in the host virtual local area network
Leandro Lisboa Penz, Dublin (IE); Arun Ajith Surendranath, Kerala (IN); Ganesan Rajagopal, Karnataka (IN); and Manish Singhvi, Rajasthan (IN)
Assigned to ARISTA NETWORKS, INC., Santa Clara, CA (US)
Filed by Arista Networks, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US)
Filed on Jan. 22, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/156,310.
Claims priority of application No. 202041051715 (IN), filed on Nov. 27, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2022/0174129 A1, Jun. 2, 2022
Int. Cl. H04L 67/563 (2022.01); H04L 45/00 (2022.01); H04L 45/745 (2022.01); H04L 45/74 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 67/563 (2022.05) [H04L 45/66 (2013.01); H04L 45/742 (2013.01); H04L 45/745 (2013.01); H04L 2212/00 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for redirecting a user to a captive portal, the method comprising:
trapping, by hardware of a network device, an incoming frame originating from a host, wherein the incoming frame comprises a request directed to an external server, the request having a layer 2 (L2) header and a payload, wherein the payload specifies information associated with the external server, wherein the user of the host has not been authenticated by the captive portal at a time when the incoming frame is trapped;
extracting, by an L2 forwarder of the network device, the L2 header, an L3 header, and the payload from the incoming frame;
modifying the L3 header to replace a destination IP address of the external server with an IP address of a redirection server;
forwarding, by the L2 forwarder after the extracting, the L3 header and the payload towards the redirection server, wherein the redirection server is configured to generate a redirection response based on the payload;
encapsulating the redirection response to obtain an L3 response packet having a second L3 header;
modifying the second L3 header to specify the IP address of the external server as a source IP address and a host IP as the destination IP address;
encapsulating the L3 response packet using information from the L2 header to obtain an output frame comprising the second L3 header and wherein the redirection response specifies a URL for the captive portal; and
transmitting the output frame towards the host.