| CPC H04L 61/5014 (2022.05) [H04L 12/66 (2013.01); H04L 61/5046 (2022.05)] | 7 Claims |

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1. A method of configuring a communication network comprising a gateway adapted to interconnect said communication network to a wide area communication network, said gateway being connected to a plurality of nodes implementing an access point functionality of a wireless local area network, said plurality of nodes including a current master node selected from said plurality of nodes, said current master node being configured to define the configuration of the communication network, said method causes a master node of the plurality of nodes to perform:
obtaining a first IP address associated with a base MAC address of said master node; and
after said master node being elected as the current master node:
obtaining a virtual MAC address and a second IP address associated with said virtual MAC address, said second IP address being reserved for network services configuration and being different from and decorrelated from said first IP address; and
configuring a virtual network interface to host network services with said second IP address associated with said virtual MAC address;
wherein, when said virtual MAC address and said second IP address are already allocated on the communication network, obtaining the virtual MAC address and the second IP address associated with said virtual MAC address comprises:
obtaining said virtual MAC address and said second IP address associated with said virtual MAC address from said master node if said virtual MAC address and said second IP address are already available to said master node, else
receiving said virtual MAC address and said second IP address associated with said virtual MAC address from another node in the communication network.
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