Patent ID: 8130676

Claim:
A method for managing a peer-to-peer network that includes a plurality of at least four nodes, each node having a node ID, each respective node of the peer-to-peer network being associated with a different network device, the method comprising the steps of: a) sending, from a leaving node that is leaving the peer-to-peer network, a leave message, including information relating to the leaving node, to a successor node and a predecessor node of the leaving node, as two neighboring nodes of the leaving node, the two neighboring nodes being nodes known to the leaving node; b) updating the two neighboring nodes exclusive of any other node of the plurality of at least four nodes with the information from the leave message; c) routing a message from a source node to a destination node using respective ones of the plurality of at least four nodes including the leaving node based on a first routing scheme; and d) (1) routing of a message from the predecessor node to a further predecessor node, the routed message including a time-to-live (TTL) value (2) decrementing the TTL value; (3) if the decremented TTL value is greater than zero, routing the message to another further predecessor node; and (4) repeating steps (2) and (3) until the TTL value is zero.