Patent ID: 6772221
Filing Date: 2004-08-03
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
In a computing network environment having a gateway device and a plurality of hosts potentially connected to one or more routers and local area networks, said hosts being electronically connected to said gateway device, a method of dynamically configuring and monitoring all hosts connected to said gateway device, said method comprising the steps of:performing an initialization step during which using handshaking techniques addresses of all connected hosts to said gateway are determined; providing a routing table and storing said table in a memory location accessible to said gateway device; providing from a device driver of a router a special Internetwork Packet Exchange protocol (IPX) command every time said router learns a host is added to said environment; providing as part of said special IPX command information about all said connected hosts' IPX sessions with other hosts, router information to other connected hosts and the final destinations of IPX packets, and connection routes of one host connected to another host; registering all new entries in said routing table, each entry representing a route to a host from the gateway device; said registering all new entries in said routing table comprising the steps of; receiving at the host who learns of a new IPX station, information and passing to the gateway device, information about new IPX stations in said network environment using said IPX command; building at each host connected to said new IPX stations, a corresponding IPX packet for each new IPX station and providing to the gateway device, information about this new route; updating by said gateway device, said routing table with new information about routes to said new IPX station; keeping duplicate entries representing duplicate routes in said routing table, each entry having a Tick count comprised of a value indicating the path length of the route, and sorting them in Tick count order so as to provide information about shortest paths available to each host in said network; providing a counter at said gateway device and incrementing said counter to determine a Hit count each time an IPX packet is received from said network over a route which contains a matching IPX network number and recording said Hit count in the entry corresponding to said route; periodically sorting said entries so as to provide entries with the highest hit counts and placing them first; and resorting said entries and clearing said hit counts so as to keep the most used entries first so as to provide more efficient searching.