Patent ID: 7010608

Claim:
A system comprising: a home server including a service component installed in a network software stack, the service component to detect when a server application listens for a connection; a remote client coupled through the Internet and to the system by an Internet agent, the Internet agent listening on behalf of the home server for connection requests from a remote client; a forwarding agent directly connected to the home server, wherein the service component informs the forwarding agent that the server application is listening for a connection and forwards the access parameters to the forwarding agent, the forwarding agent to provide the Internet agent with access parameters received from the home server; and a gateway running a Network Address Translation (NAT) software program, the gateway connecting the forwarding agent to the Internet agent via the Internet; wherein, if the remote client provides proper access parameters to the Internet agent, the Internet agent provides the remote client access to a service running on the home server and the Internet agent and the forwarding agent act as layer 4 routers.