Patent ID: 7433320

Claim:
A method of identifying network paths comprising: building a path verification message for transmission from an originator to a destination; storing the identity of the originator in the path verification message, the message being stored in a nonvolatile manner undisturbed by successive routing operations, the path verification message including attributes according to a predetermined protocol, storing the identity of the originator further comprising: identifying a preserved attribute in the path verification message, the preserved attribute propagating to each of the intermediate switching devices during the transmission; storing an address of the originator as the identity in the preserved attribute; storing a reachability indicator indicative of prefix or path routes in the preserved attribute; and identifying an origination router of the path verification message; transmitting the path verification message to the destination via at least one intermediate switching device; receiving, if the transmitting was successful, the path verification message at the destination; recovering, from the received path verification message, the identity of the transmitting originator by recovering the stored identity; and designating a path between the destination and the originator as a verified path based on the recovered identity of the originator.