Patent ID: 7646783

Claim:
An electronic device including a processor that generates an interface identifier to determine an IP address to use, comprising: an interface identifier generating unit configured to generate the interface identifier using a server based identifier management generating unit or a local interface identifier unit; a temporary IP address generating unit configured to generate a temporary IP address containing the interface identifier generated by the interface identifier generating unit and a prefix; a duplication determining unit configured to determine whether the temporary IP address generated by the temporary IP address generating unit is the same as an IP address of another electronic device; and an IP address determining unit configured to specify the temporary IP address as the IP address to use, when the duplication determining unit determines that the temporary IP address is not the same as the IP address of said another electronic device; wherein when the duplication determining unit determines that the temporary IP address is the same as the IP address of said another electronic device, the interface identifier generating unit generates another interface identifier by using the local interface identifier unit for a pre-determined number of attempts, when the pre-determined number of attempts is reached, the interface identifier generating unit generates the another interface identifier by using the server based identifier management generating unit, and wherein the another interface identifier generated by local interface identifier unit is generated using a MAC address of the electronic device in which values excluding FFFE are inserted between high 24 bits and low 24 bits.