Patent ID: 7330456

Claim:
A method for relaying messages via a wireless medium within a network environment, comprising the steps of: establishing association between first and second access points, where the first access point acts as a client from the perspective of the second access point; at the first access point, responsive to receipt of an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) query packet transmitted wirelessly from a first station that is associated to the first access point, modifying the ARP query packet by substituting a hardware address of the first access point for a sender hardware address in an ARP datagram of the ARP query packet and a source hardware address in a MAC header of the ARP query packet and changing a set identifier in the MAC header of the ARP query packet from the hardware address of the first access point to that of the second access point; and at the first access point, responsive to receipt of an ARP reply packet issued from a second station whose network-layer address matches a target network-layer address in the ARP datagram of the modified ARP query packet, where a target hardware address in an ARP datagram of the ARP reply packet has been set to a hardware address of the second station, modifying the ARP reply packet by changing a set identifier in a MAC header of the ARP reply packet from the hardware address of the second access point to that of the first access point.