Patent ID: 7359983

Claim:
A method for processing a fragmented packet with a firewalling device, comprising: receiving fragments of the packet prior to processing of firewall policies at the firewalling device; sorting the fragments according to the packet and order of the fragments; storing the fragments in association with the packet and in order in a connection table (CT) and a Network Address Translation table (NT); cross linking the NT and CT by storing a hash of at least a portion of the fragments in one of the NT and CT tables; collecting and assembling all the fragments in order to fully reconstitute the packet prior to applying firewall policies; storing an Address Research Table (ART) for a first packet of a connection to the firewall device in association with one of the NT and the CT, and the hashing each of the subsequent packets to determine a table entry to forward the packet; and transferring the packet to the firewalling device to apply the firewall policies to the entire packet at one time.