Patent ID: 11956213
Assignee: VMWARE LLC
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A method for transmitting data messages via secure tunnels in a network, the method comprising:
at a gateway device:
determining that a first data message received at the gateway device is to be sent via a secure interface of the gateway device;
matching the first data message to a firewall rule that maps to a particular secure tunnel used by the secure interface, wherein a plurality of different firewall rules map to a plurality of different secure tunnels used by the secure interface;
encapsulating the first data message with a header that comprises an indicator value specifying the particular secure tunnel and forwarding the encapsulated first data message to a destination interface;
determining that a second data message received at the gateway device is not to be sent via the secure interface of the gateway device; and
forwarding the second data message on the network via a different interface of the gateway device.