Patent ID: 7260650

Claim:
In a beginning tunneling device, a method of communication comprising the steps of: detecting an initial request at the beginning tunneling device; identifying the initial request as a candidate to be converted to a tunneling request wherein the identifying further comprises at least one of detecting that a destination address in the initial request is for a destination device associated with an end tunneling device, identifying any initial request received that has a particular source address as being designated to become a tunneling request, and interpreting information from an initial header in order to identify that the initial request is intended to be a tunneling request; modifying at least one indicator of an initial header in the initial request to convert the initial request into the tunneling request, said modifying including specifying a destination code within a tunneling header for at least one of a plurality of destination addresses of destination devices served by an end tunneling device; wherein the initial request received by the beginning tunneling device is in the format of a TCP/IP protocol and wherein the specifying comprises steps of: generating a destination code to designate a destination address served by the end tunneling device; and storing the destination code in a fragment offset field of an IP header of the tunneling request; said modifying further includes setting an error correction code in the tunneling header to reflect modifications made to convert the initial header to the tunneling header and forwarding the tunneling request towards the end tunneling device.