Patent ID: 8161148

Claim:
A communication device that relays communication between a LAN network connecting to a computer and a WAN network connecting to a host, said communication device comprising: a rewritable nonvolatile memory; a DHCP client module configured to access a DHCP server to acquire a WAN IP address used by the WAN network to connect the communication device to the host; a judgment module that determines whether a user ID and a password required to acquire from a PPPoE server the WAN IP address are stored in the rewritable nonvolatile memory; an IP address reply module that, when said judgment module determines that the user ID and password required to acquire from the PPPoE server the WAN IP address are not stored in the rewritable nonvolatile memory and when the DHCP client module fails to acquire the WAN IP address from the DHCP server, in response to reception of a request from the computer for retrieval of a host IP address associated with a host name of the host requested by the computer, sends back a LAN IP address of the communication device instead of the host IP address of the host, thereby effectively faking the IP address of the host; a page return module that receives from the computer a page display request for displaying a page of the host, addressed to the LAN IP address of the communication device, and returns in response to the page display request an information page for entering at least the user ID and password instead of the page requested by the page display request, thereby sending the computer a page for entry of information instead of the page requested by the computer; an information receiving module that receives at least the user ID and password entered in the information page returned to the computer; and a setting module that sets a communication setting based on the received user ID and password in the information page received from the computer and registers the received information by storing at least the user ID and password into the rewritable nonvolatile memory; the communication device implementing a sequence of actions to assist an end user to establish an authentication communication setting required to access an Internet Service Provider (ISP) regardless of whether the ISP uses a DHCP authentication protocol or a PPPoE authentication protocol; wherein said communication device is further operable to: send a web page to effectively direct the computer to the page originally requested by the page display request after setting the communication setting.