Patent ID: 8861345

Claim:
A method for performing an automatic join and leave function for a host using Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) signaling, the method comprising: sending a BGP join request that indicates a request for the host to join a virtual network; receiving a BGP join response that indicates either an acceptance or a rejection of the BGP join request; adding the host to the virtual network when the BGP join response accepts the BGP join request; sending a BGP leave request that indicates a request to leave the virtual network; receiving a BGP leave response that indicates either an acceptance or a rejection of the BGP leave request; and removing the host from the virtual network when the BGP leave response accepts the BGP leave request, wherein the BGP join request comprises: a virtual network identifier (ID) field that identifies the virtual network that the host is attempting to join; and a version field that indicates the version of encoding used to encode the BGP join request, and wherein the BGP join request, the BGP join response, the BGP leave request, and the BGP leave response are BGP Update messages.