Patent ID: 7782867

Claim:
A node device which is to participate in an overlay network formed by participation of all or a part of a plurality of node devices, mutually connected through a communication network, comprising: a device information acquisition unit for acquiring device information of the plurality of node devices to which participation request information indicative of a participation request into the overlay network is to be transmitted; a reachable range setting unit for setting up information indicative of a reachable range of the participation request information, which is transmitted on the communication network; a participation request information transmission unit for adding information indicative of the reachable range to the participation request information and transmitting the participation request information including the information indicative of the reachable range to each of the node devices, each of the node devices being respectively specified by each of the acquired device information; a reply information receiving unit for receiving reply information, which is transmitted from each of the node devices that receive the participation request information, and the reply information transmitted from each node device includes a transfer destination table specifying a transfer destination of information on the overlay network; and a transfer destination table generation unit for generating the transfer destination table to be used by the own node device, on the basis of the transfer destination table included in the received reply information; wherein the transfer destination table is classified into a plurality of levels; and in a case where the reply information receiving unit receives the reply information from the plurality of node devices, and when there are a plurality of transfer destination tables of the same level in each of transfer destination tables included in each of the reply information, the transfer destination table generation unit generates a transfer destination table to be used by itself on the basis of the transfer destination table of one of the node devices, the transfer destination table being receivable when the reachable range of the participation request information is the narrowest among the plurality of transfer destination tables of the same level.