Patent ID: 9602470
Date: 2017-03-21
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A network device for connecting a plurality of slave network devices, each of the slave network devices communicating with the network device by using a different Internet protocol (IP) address, the network device comprising: an Internet protocol security (IPsec) module for establishing an IPsec tunnel to a network gateway in the Internet and retrieving an IPsec IP address corresponding to the IPsec tunnel; and a network address translation (NAT) module for converting the different IP addresses of the slave network devices to the same IPsec IP address, such that the slave network devices share the IPsec tunnel and use the same IPsec IP address to communicate with the network gateway through the IPsec tunnel; wherein at least one of the IPsec module and the NAT module is implemented by a processor; wherein the IPsec tunnel ends at the network device and the network gateway without extending to any of the slave network devices.