Patent ID: 7581005

Claim:
A method for maintaining by a transport control protocol terminating appliance a header option of a transport control protocol connection request communicated between a client and a server via the transport control protocol terminating appliance and a second appliance, and identifying by the second appliance via the header option a type of network connection of a port of the second appliance, the method comprising the steps of: (a) receiving, by a first appliance, a first request from a client to establish a transport control protocol connection to a server, the first request identifying a transport control protocol header option, the first appliance terminating a first transport protocol control connection with the client; (b) identifying, by the first appliance, a transport control protocol header option of the first request; (c) transmitting, by the first appliance in response to the first request, a second request to establish the transport control connection to the server, the first appliance providing in the second request the identified transport control protocol header option of the first request; (d) identifying, by a second appliance, the transport control header option of the second request received on a port of the second appliance; and (e) determining, by the second appliance, a type of network connection of the port in response to identifying the transport control header option.