Protocol and method for peer network device discovery

• US 6,269,099 B1
• Filed: 07/01/1998
• Issued: 07/31/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: 3Com Corporation (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Borella, Michael S., Schuster, Guido M., Mahler, Jerry J., Sidhu, Ikhlaq
• Primary Examiner(s): Hsu, Alpus H.
• Assistant Examiner(s): HO, DUC CHI
• Application Number:
  US09/108,935
• Time in Patent Office: 1,126 Days
• Field of Search: 370/231, 370/236, 370/352, 370/389, 370/392, 370/401, 370/465, 370/469, 370/475, 370/466, 709/245
• US Class Current: 370/389
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4604 LAN interconnection over a backbone network, e.g. Internet, Frame Relay
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/00 Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks routing or path finding in wireless networks H04W40/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/163 In-band adaptation of TCP data exchange; In-band control procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/164 Adaptation or special uses of UDP protocol
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/24 Negotiation of communication capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/326 in the transport layer [OSI layer 4] H04L69/16 takes precedence

Abstract

A protocol and methods for peer network device discovery is presented. The peer discovery protocol includes a peer discovery marker than can be used with an existing networking protocol such as Transmission Control Protocol (“TCP”) to discover peer network devices. The peer discovery protocol also includes a peer discovery table to record network addresses of peer network devices and their associated host network devices. The peer discovery method allows a first peer network device such as an edge router, to send out a peer discovery request with the peer discovery protocol to other peer network devices as the peer network device is sending data packets for a host network device. Once a second peer network device receives a peer discovery request, the second peer network device attempts to establish a two-way, peer-to-peer data-flow to the first peer network device that sent the peer discovery requests. The peer discovery protocol and methods allow error correction, encryption, compression and other “intelligent” services to be added to peer network devices such as edge routers. The peer discovery protocol and peer discovery methods may enhance performance, reliability and security of data transmitted over the Internet to and from Autonomous Systems, subnets, or other computer networks.

Claims

1. In a first network with a plurality of network devices connected to a second network with a plurality of network devices via a third network, a method of peer network device discovery, the method comprising the following steps:

receiving an original first data packet from a first network device on a second network device on the first network, wherein the first data packet is used to establish a connection from the first network device on the first network to a fourth network device on the second network;

adding a peer discovery marker from a peer discovery protocol to a header in the first data packet on the second network device to create a modified first data packet, wherein the peer discovery marker includes a network address for the second network device; and

sending the modified first data packet from the second network device on the first network to a third network device on the second network via the third network.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving the modified first data packet on the third network device on the second network via the third network;

extracting information from the peer discovery marker in the modified first data packet;

storing information from the peer discovery marker in a first peer discovery table from a peer discovery protocol on the third network device;

deleting the peer discovery marker from the header in the modified first data packet on the third network device to recover the original first data packet; and

sending the original first data packet to a fourth network device on the second network to establish a connection between the fourth network device and the first network device.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

creating a second data packet on the third network device after receiving the modified first data packet;

adding a first network address for the third network device and a second network address for an associated host fourth network device to the second data packet; and

sending the second data packet from the third network device on the second network to the second network device on the first network via the third network, thereby providing information for establishing a two-way peer-to-peer data flow between the third network device and the second network device.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

receiving the second data packet on the second network device on the first network via the third network;

extracting a first network address for the peer third network device and a second network address for the for the associated host fourth network device from the second data packet; and

storing the first network address and the second network address in a second peer discovery table from a peer discovery protocol on the second network device, thereby providing network addresses for establishing a two-way peer-to-peer data flow between the second network device and the third network device via the third network.

5. A computer readable medium having stored therein instructions for causing a central processing unit to execute the method of claim 1.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the first network and second networks are Autonomous Systems and the third network is the Internet.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the peer discovery marker includes a kind-field, a length-field and a network address-field for a Transmission Control Protocol Option.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the first data packet is a Transmission Control Protocol packet with an Internet Protocol packet.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the header in the first data packet is a Transmission Control Protocol header.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the first network device is a network host computer and the second network device is an edge router.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the peer discovery protocol includes a peer discovery marker and a peer discovery table.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of adding a peer discovery marker includes re-calculating a length of the modified first data packet, a length of the header for the modified first data packet and a checksum for the header, with the peer discovery marker included in the header of the modified first data packet.

13. The method of claim 2 wherein the first peer discovery table includes a first network address-field for storing a first network address for a peer network device and a second network address-field for storing a second network address for an associated host network device for the peer network device.

14. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of deleting the peer discovery marker includes re-calculating a length of the original first data packet, a length of the header for the original first data packet, and a checksum for the header, without the peer discovery marker included in the header of the first data packet.

15. In a first network with a plurality of network devices connected to a second network with a plurality of network devices via a third network, a method of peer network device discovery, the method comprising the following steps:

receiving a first data packet with a peer discovery marker from a peer discovery protocol on a first network device;

extracting information from the peer discovery marker;

storing information from the peer discovery marker in a first peer discovery table from a peer discovery protocol on the first network device;

deleting the peer discovery marker from the header on the peer discovery data packet on the first network device to recover an original data packet without the peer discovery marker; and

sending the first data packet to a host second network device associated with the first network device.

16. A computer readable medium having stored therein instructions for causing a central processing unit to execute the method of claim 15.

17. In a first network with a plurality of network devices connected to a second network with a plurality of network devices via a third network, a method of peer network device discovery, the method comprising the following steps:

receiving a second data packet on a first network device on the first network, wherein the second data packet is sent by a second network device on a second network in response to a first data packet including a peer discovery marker from a peer discovery protocol sent by the first network device;

extracting a first network address for the second network device and a second network address for a host network device associated with the second network device from the second data packet; and

storing the first network address and the second network address in a peer discovery table from a peer discovery protocol on the first network device, thereby providing network addresses for establishing a two-way peer-to-peer data flow between the first network device and the second network device.

18. A computer readable medium having stored therein instructions for causing a central processing unit to execute the method of claim 17.

19. A computer readable medium having stored therein a set of routines for implementing peer discovery protocol, the protocol allowing a first network device on a first network to discover a peer second network device on a second network, the set of routines implementing the peer discovery protocol as data bits, the computer readable medium comprising:

a peer discovery marker, for creating a modified networking protocol data packet, wherein the peer discovery marker is added to a header of a networking protocol data packet and is used to discover a peer network device; and

a peer discovery table, for recording network addresses for establishing a two-way peer-to-peer data flow between the first network device on the first network and the peer second network device on the second network via a third computer network with information from the peer discovery marker.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 19 wherein the peer discovery marker includes a kind-field, a length-field and a network address-field for a Transmission Control Protocol Option.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 19 wherein the peer discovery table includes a first network address-field for a peer network device and a second network address-field for an associated host network device for the peer network device.

22. The computer readable medium of claim 19 wherein the header is a Transmission Control Protocol header.

23. The computer readable medium of claim 19 wherein the networking protocol data packet is a Transmission Control Protocol packet with an Internet Protocol packet.

24. In a first network with a plurality of network devices connected to a second network with a plurality of network devices via a third network, the network devices including a plurality of edge routers, a method of peer network device discovery, the method comprising the following steps:

adding a peer discovery marker from a peer discovery protocol to a header in a first data packet on a first edge router to create a modified first data packet, wherein the peer discovery marker includes a first network address for the first edge router;

sending the peer discovery data packet from the first edge router on the first network to a second edge router on the second network via the third network;

receiving a second data packet on the first edge router, wherein the second data packet is sent by the second edge router on a second network in response to the modified first data packet;

extracting a second network address for the second edge router from the peer discovery marker and a third network address for a host network device associated with the second edge router from the second data packet; and

storing the second network address and the third network address in a peer discovery table from a peer discovery protocol on the first edge router, thereby providing network addresses for establishing a two-way peer-to-peer data flow between the first edge router and the second edge router.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

establishing a two-way peer-to-peer data-flow between the first edge router and the second edge router using the network addresses from the peer discovery table.

26. A computer readable medium having stored therein instructions for causing a central processing unit to execute the method of claim 24.

27. In a first network with a plurality of network devices connected to a second network with a plurality of network devices via a third network, the network devices including a plurality of edge routers, a method of peer network device discovery, the method comprising the following steps:

receiving a modified first data packet with a peer discovery protocol marker on a first edge router on the first network from a second edge router on the second network;

extracting a first network address for the second edge router from the peer discovery protocol marker and a second network address for a host network device associated with the second edge router from the modified first data packet;

storing the first network address for the second edge router from the peer discovery marker and the second network address from the modified first data packet in a peer discovery table from the peer discovery protocol on the first edge router;

creating a second data packet on the first edge router in response to the modified first data packet;

adding a third network address for the first edge router and a fourth network address for host network device associated with the first edge router to the second data packet;

sending the second data packet from first edge router on the first network to the second edge router on the second network via the third network, thereby providing network addresses for establishing a two-way peer-to-peer data-flow between the first edge router and the second edge router via the third network.

28. A computer readable medium having stored therein instructions for causing a central processing unit to execute the method of claim 27.