Patent ID: 7318100

Claim:
In a network supporting transactions between clients and servers, wherein a client is a host that requests a transaction and a server is a host that issues responses responsive to client requests and wherein packets between a client and a server travel over a network path comprising one or more hops, a method of probing for proxies on a network path comprising: receiving, at a first probe node, a first packet from a target client directed at a target server; modifying the first packet to signal presence of the first probe node in the network path, thus forming a modified first packet; forwarding the modified first packet toward the target server; monitoring, at the first probe node, packets for the target client apparently from the target server to detect packets containing return signals, wherein a return signal is a signal from a proxy that detects the signal in the modified first packet and is an indication that the proxy detected the signal as being a proxy probing signal; recording a successful probe if a responsive return signal is received corresponding to a signal sent from the first probe node; updating a proxy mapping table with results of a successful probe; and following a current connection, using proxy mapping from the proxy mapping table in a later connection.