Patent ID: 8381013

Claim:
A method for detection faults of peers on a forwarding path between a source peer and a destination peer in a P2P network, comprising: receiving, by an intermediate peer on the forwarding path, a diagnosis request message; wherein the diagnosis request message is originated from the source peer for detecting faults of peers on the forwarding path between the source peer and the destination peer; forwarding, by the intermediate peer, the diagnosis request message to an immediate downstream peer on the forwarding path; judging, by the intermediate peer, that a peer upstream or downstream of the intermediate peer on the forwarding path is faulty for not providing P2P network services normally; and sending, by the intermediate peer, a diagnosis response message to a diagnosis collecting peer; wherein the diagnosis response message carries information about the peer judged to be faulty, and wherein the diagnosis collecting peer is the source peer or a peer specified by the diagnosis request message.