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System and method for directing network traffic in tunneling applications

  • US 9,614,772 B1
  • Filed: 11/21/2003
  • Issued: 04/04/2017
  • Est. Priority Date: 10/20/2003
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. An apparatus for directing a packet to a tunnel in a network, comprising:

  • (a) a transceiver arranged to receive and forward each packet in a flow of packets; and

    (b) a processor, coupled to the transceiver, that is arranged to perform actions, including;

    receiving the packets from a network device;

    extracting data from the packets, wherein the extraction comprises a deep packet inspection at multiple layers of the seven layers in an Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) layered protocol across data extracted from a plurality of the packets to provide a rule syntax for at least one symbolic variable that is employed to generate a flow criteria for selecting a tunnel from a plurality of different tunnels, wherein the at least one symbolic variable includes Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) data content and one or more of a client address, server address, client port, server port, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) content;

    buffering a defined amount of data from the plurality of packets to determine whether the flow criteria is satisfied, wherein the defined amount is based on a number of packets required to identify the flow criteria, and wherein the number of packets is selectable based on a request to access the at least one symbolic variable;

    when the flow criteria is unsatisfied by the defined amount of buffered data, selecting the tunnel from the plurality of different tunnels based on the flow criteria being unsatisfied;

    when the flow criteria is satisfied by the defined amount of buffered data, selecting the tunnel from the plurality of different tunnels based in part on the extracted data, wherein the selected tunnel is pre-designated for a tunneling protocol that is associated with the extracted data;

    associating the packets with the selected tunnel, wherein the selected tunnel further comprises at least one of an MPLS tunnel, an IPSec tunnel, a SOCKS tunnel, a secure tunnel, and a load-balanced tunnel; and

    forwarding the packets towards the selected tunnel.

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