Patent ID: 8560638

Claim:
In a first network node having a network interface to which a first network address is assigned, a method of reconfiguring the network interface, the method comprising: receiving information indicating that an operator desires to remove the first network address from the network interface and/or assign a second network address to the network interface; and in response to receiving the information, providing a notification to a first application executing in the first network node and using the network interface and a protocol stack of the first network node to communicate with a second application executing on a second network node such that the first application can take a necessary measure, wherein the step of receiving the information that indicates that an operator desires to remove the first network address from the network interface and assign a second network address to the network interface comprises: (1) receiving, from a protocol stack, information indicating that an operator has removed the first network address from the network interface and added the second network address to the network interface; and (2) after step (1), receiving, from the protocol stack, information indicating that an operator has assigned the first network address to the network interface as an alias.