Patent ID: 8634428

Claim:
A method of establishing a connection between hosts in a computer network, the connection providing symmetrical forward and reverse routing, the method comprising: routing, using a first host local routing table, a packet from a first host to a first gateway according to a routing protocol; routing, using a first gateway local routing table, the packet from the first gateway to a first access router; routing, using a first access router local routing table, the packet from the first access router to a second access router; routing, using a second access router local routing table, the packet from the second access router to a second gateway, the second access router generating a second access router stateful symmetrical routing table with a new parameter to force symmetrical reverse routing from the second gateway to the second access router only if an alternate route from the second gateway to the first host exists that does not include the second access router, thereby avoiding addition of redundant information in the second access router stateful symmetrical routing table; and routing, using a second gateway local routing table, the packet from the second gateway to a second host, the second gateway generating a second gateway stateful symmetrical routing table with the new parameter to force symmetrical reverse routing from the second host to the second gateway only if an alternate route from the second host to the first host exists that does not include the second gateway, thereby avoiding addition of redundant information in the second gateway stateful symmetrical routing table, wherein each of the stateful symmetrical routing tables changes a corresponding local routing table by updating the local routing tables using reverse routing according to a source address associated with the packet.