Patent ID: 7876751

Claim:
A method for communicating over a computer network having a first port with a point-to-point link connection to a second port, the method comprising: the first port storing in a buffer, a first data packet to be transmitted, the first data packet comprising a first packet header, and a first packet payload; the first port, transmitting to the second port from the buffer a first reliable link layer (RLL) packet over the link, the first RLL packet comprising a first RLL header and the first data packet, the first RLL header preceding the first data packet, the first RLL header comprising an RLL start-of-frame (SOF) character and an RLL packet sequence number (PSN); if the first port receives an RLL acknowledgment control packet from the link, acknowledging receipt of the first data packet, the first port not retaining the first data packet in the buffer, the RLL acknowledgement control packet comprising: an op-code field for defining the type of RLL message being sent and the RLL PSN; and if the first port does not receive the RLL acknowledgment packet from the link, acknowledging receipt of the first data packet, the first port re-transmitting from the buffer the first data packet.