Patent ID: 6862629

Claim:
A method of dispatching on a socks server an IP datagram originated from an application on a source device, in an Internet Protocol (IP) network comprising a plurality of socks servers, said IP datagram comprising a Source IP Address field in an IP header, a Source Port field in a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) header, and socks data, said method comprising the steps of: in a socks dispatcher, identifying the source device, said step comprising the further step of retrieving source address in the Source IP Address field; identifying the application on the source device, said step comprising the further step of retrieving an application address in the Source Port field; determining an application level protocol of socks data by referring to a first table, said first table comprising, for each socks connection identified by a source address and an application address, an application level protocol by: determining that the IP datagram comprises a socks CONNECT message; updating the first table with a new socks connection identified by the source address and the application address of the IP datagram; retrieving the application level protocol from the IP datagram; associating said socks connection with said retrieved application level protocol in said first table; and selecting a socks server by referring to a second table, said second table defining for each application level protocol one or a plurality of socks servers.