| CPC G06F 8/61 (2013.01) | 20 Claims |
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1. A method for dynamic installation of extensible network operating system (ENOS) extensions, the method comprising:
receiving, by a network device, a command to download a full software image (SWI) from an install source, the full SWI having a signature and a directory containing software packages for ENOS extensions, the network device having a nonvolatile memory;
while the full SWI is being downloaded from the install source to the nonvolatile memory, modifying, by the network device, the full SWI on the fly, the modifying comprising:
reading and removing the software packages from the directory;
as each respective software package is read from the directory, determining whether to process the respective software package; and
for each respective software package that is to be processed:
extracting an ENOS extension and a corresponding signature from the respective software package; and
storing the ENOS extension with the corresponding signature on the nonvolatile memory;
wherein the modifying results in a modified SWI containing the signature without the software packages; and
wherein, after download is complete, the nonvolatile memory stores a subset of the ENOS extensions with corresponding signatures;
verifying, by the network device using the corresponding signatures, the subset of the ENOS extensions so as to determine valid ENOS extensions for inclusion in an overlay filesystem which becomes a root filesystem for the network device; and
verifying, by the network device, the signature of the modified SWI before booting the network device into the modified SWI.
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