Patent ID: 7028332

Claim:
A method for preventing packet retransmissions during Internet Protocol (IP) security (IPsec) security association establishment comprising: monitoring application socket requests; requesting a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection by an application: determining if there is an active IPsec security association that exists to protect network flow associated with the connection request; preventing the connection request from proceeding to the Transmission Control Protocol of the TCP/IP stack if no active IPsec security association exists to protect the network flow; determining if an IPsec security policy exists for the network flow if no active IPsec security association exists to protect the network flow; alerting a security association negotiation component to initiate negotiation for the IPsec security association based on the IPsec security policy if the IPsec security policy exists for the network flow; and allowing the connection request to proceed to the Transmission Control Protocol after the IPsec security association is established from the negotiation.