Patent ID: 7864703

Claim:
A packet communication device that receives a packet over a network and transfers the received packet, comprising: a network interface that sends or receives the packet to or from the network; a functional module that performs processing of a specific process content for the packet; a path retrieving unit that has a path table for obtaining identifiers of said network interface and said functional module and, upon receiving a packet, adds the identifiers, obtained from the path table, to the packet; and a module control management unit that stores configuration information, which describes a condition of a packet to which a process is to be applied and a process content for a packet satisfying the condition and, based on the configuration information, finds and stores an identifier of said functional module that can process the process content, wherein said module control management unit sends the process content, in part or in whole, to said functional module as an offering message, said functional module determines whether or not processing for the process content received from said module control management unit is possible or not and sends an answer of offering to said module control management unit, said module control management unit selects a functional module, to which processing of the process content is to be assigned, based on the answer of offering returned by said functional module and requests the selected functional module to set up for processing, said module control management unit sends a command to said path retrieving unit so that a packet satisfying the condition is sent to one or more of said selected functional modules according to the process content specified by the configuration information, and said path retrieving unit sets the path table according to the command received from said module control management unit so that a packet satisfying the condition is sent to one or more of said selected functional modules according to the process content specified by the configuration information.