Patent ID: 7990896

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, wherein each of the one or more other participant nodes is configured with a different respective Internet Protocol (IP) address defining how to address the participant node in the peer-to-peer network, the method comprising: (a) at least one of the one or more other participant nodes using its IP address to generate 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 includes an IP address (i) that is different from the IP address of the at least one of the one or more other participant nodes, and (ii) that defines how to address the prospective-participant node as a participant node in the peer-to-peer network; and (b) the at least one of the one or more other participant nodes sending to the prospective-participant node the participant-node-configuration data, wherein the IP address included in the participant-node-configuration data is usable by the prospective-participant node as an address for the one or more other participant nodes to address the prospective-participant node as a participant node in the peer-to-peer network.