Patent ID: 7805504

Claim:
A network device having a first operational mode and a second operational mode, the network device comprising: storage means for storing a configuration parameter of said network device; packet receiving means for receiving a communication packet; address generating means for responsive responding to said packet receiving means receiving a communication packet in said first operational mode, for generating a logical address on a network in accordance with a prescribed address generating scheme and for assigning the logical address to said network device as an assigned address; identifier resolving means for responding to the communication packet received by said packet receiving means being a packet inquiring an unknown logical address corresponding to an identifier of a resource on the network, for transmitting a returned logical address of said network device to a transmission source of said communication packet that inquired the unknown logical address, regardless of the identifier; parameter setting means for storing the returned logical address in said storage means; as a value of the configuration parameter transmitted in said first operational mode; means for realizing a prescribed network function by communication using said value of the configuration parameter stored in said storage means, in said second operational mode; physical address storage means for storing a physical address of a transmission source of a packet first received by said packet receiving means in said first operational mode; and error processing means for comparing a physical address of a source of a packet received secondly or thereafter by said packet receiving means in said first operational mode with the physical address stored in said physical address storage means, and for carrying out a predetermined error process when the compared addresses are different.