Patent ID: 8117301

Claim:
A method for testing connectivity of unnumbered interfaces of a target device, the method comprising: executing a software utility on a source device; presenting with the software utility a user interface to receive input from a user at the source device, wherein the input identifies the target device and an offset, wherein the offset represents an index internally resolved by the target device to one of a plurality of unnumbered network interfaces of the target device and the offset controls the one of the plurality of unnumbered network interfaces from which the target device will output a reply packet, wherein each of the unnumbered network interfaces of the target device is coupled to a different network link, and wherein the plurality of unnumbered network interfaces of the target device have no publicly known identifiers that are known by devices external to the target device; and outputting from the source device with the software utility one or more request packets to test connectivity from the source device to one of the plurality of unnumbered network interfaces of the target device, wherein at least one of the request packets specifies the offset and communicates the offset from the source device to the target device to request a connectivity test of the one of the plurality of unnumbered network interfaces of the target device represented by the identified offset.