A telecommunications network in accordance with the principles of the
invention includes one or more controllers that automatically determine
the physical interconnectivity between at least two ports adjacently
situated in different network elements. Each end-point, that is, each
port, has a unique identification. In an illustrative embodiment, upon
the occasion of a network modification, such as the addition of a port to
the network, the initiation of a port, or reconfiguration of a link, the
two ports attached to a communications path to form a link exchange their
"view" of the link. That is, each port sends an identification message to
the other port. Each of these messages includes the identification of the
sending port and the presumed identification of the receiving port. If at
first the ports don't agree, the receiving port updates its view of the
link. This process is repeated until both ports agree on the
identification of each port within the link.