A network configuration method, including acquiring a public key operation value of a second device in an out-of-band manner, acquiring a public key copy of the second device that is sent by the second device and that is used to perform key exchange, performing an operation of the preset algorithm on the public key copy of the second device, to obtain a public key operation value copy of the second device, and generating a first exchange key according to a private key that is used by the first device to perform key exchange and the acquired public key copy of the second device after the public key operation value copy of the second device matches the public key operation value of the second device, and hence the method simplifies a network configuration process.