Patent ID: 7263070

Claim:
A method of setting up a prospective-participant node as a participant node in a peer-to-peer network to enable the prospective-participant node to engage in peer-to-peer communication in the peer-to-peer network with one or more other participant nodes, the method comprising: (a) the prospective-participant node receiving from at least one of the one or more other participant nodes participant-node-configuration data for configuring the prospective-participant node as a participant node in the peer-to-peer network, wherein the participant-node-configuration data comprises at least one network-connection setting that defines how to address the prospective-participant node as a participant node in the peer-to-peer network; (b) the prospective-participant node configuring itself using the participant-node configuration data so as to become a participant node; and (c) establishing a point-to-point communication link between the prospective-participant node and the at least one of the one or more other participant nodes, wherein the prospective-participant node receiving from at least one of the one or more other participant nodes participant-node-configuration data comprises the prospective-participant node receiving the participant-node-configuration data over the point-to-point communication link from at least one of the one or more other participant nodes, wherein establishing the point-to-point communication link between the prospective-participant node and the at least one of the one or more other participant nodes comprises the prospective-participant node engaging in a discovery process to establish a data-link-layer connection with the at least one of the one or more other participant nodes, and wherein configured in at least one of the one or more other participant nodes is a network identifier that is usable by the at least one of the one or more other participant nodes to advertise the identity of the peer-to-peer network to the prospective-participant node, and wherein the prospective-participant node engaging in a discovery process to establish a data-link-layer connection with at least one of the one or more other participant nodes comprises (i) the prospective-participant node detecting the network identifier and (ii) responsive to the network identifier, the prospective-participant node negotiating data-link-layer connection parameters with the at least one of the one or more other participant nodes so as to establish the data-link-layer connection.