Patent ID: 8289881

Claim:
A method to reduce IP (Internet protocol) rigidity in the problems of mobility, NAT (network address translation) traversal and explicit path identity, comprising: setting up a plurality of overlay nodes, called C-nodes; a C-node is software inserted into a host or a terminal; a C-node is enabled in three alternate forms: hooking, layer 2.5 module, or router; wherein at a C-node, a connection ID (called CID) may be inserted into or removed from a packet; the CIDs inserted into the packets of a single IP connection are being the same; the CIDs are locally unique in that different IP connections crossing at the same C-node is uniquely differentiated by the CIDs; the CID may contain the MAC (media access control) address of a host or terminal; wherein a soft switch called a C-switch is maintained at each C-node to perform a packet operation (PO) which is any combination of the procedures: (1) receiving an inbound packet, (2) generating an outbound packet, (3) dropping (deleting) an inbound packet, (4) replicating an inbound packet into multiple packets, or (5) forwarding an outbound packet; the PO may be dependent on the CID inserted in the inbound packet; wherein the C-switch at each C-node also performs a CID-operation (CO) which is any combination of the procedures performed on an inbound packet: (1) inserting a CID into the packet, (2) removing a CID from the packet, (3) modifying the packet header, or (4) modifying a CID in the packet; wherein at a C-node, any combination of POs and COs is performed on a packet arriving at the C-node only if the destination IP address in the packet is the same as the IP address of the host or terminal in which the C-node resides; wherein only a select subset of C-nodes are allowed to perform COs or POs on packets arriving at the select C-nodes.