US20080288647A1 - Application programming interface and generalized network address translator for translation of transport-layer sessions - Google Patents
Application programming interface and generalized network address translator for translation of transport-layer sessions Download PDFInfo
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- US20080288647A1 US20080288647A1 US11/949,820 US94982007A US2008288647A1 US 20080288647 A1 US20080288647 A1 US 20080288647A1 US 94982007 A US94982007 A US 94982007A US 2008288647 A1 US2008288647 A1 US 2008288647A1
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L61/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services for addressing or naming
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L61/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services for addressing or naming
- H04L61/09—Mapping addresses
- H04L61/25—Mapping addresses of the same type
- H04L61/2503—Translation of Internet protocol [IP] addresses
- H04L61/2521—Translation architectures other than single NAT servers
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L61/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services for addressing or naming
- H04L61/09—Mapping addresses
- H04L61/25—Mapping addresses of the same type
- H04L61/2503—Translation of Internet protocol [IP] addresses
- H04L61/255—Maintenance or indexing of mapping tables
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L69/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services independent of the application payload and not provided for in the other groups of this subclass
- H04L69/16—Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L69/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services independent of the application payload and not provided for in the other groups of this subclass
- H04L69/22—Parsing or analysis of headers
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L69/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services independent of the application payload and not provided for in the other groups of this subclass
- H04L69/30—Definitions, standards or architectural aspects of layered protocol stacks
- H04L69/32—Architecture of open systems interconnection [OSI] 7-layer type protocol stacks, e.g. the interfaces between the data link level and the physical level
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L69/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services independent of the application payload and not provided for in the other groups of this subclass
- H04L69/30—Definitions, standards or architectural aspects of layered protocol stacks
- H04L69/32—Architecture of open systems interconnection [OSI] 7-layer type protocol stacks, e.g. the interfaces between the data link level and the physical level
- H04L69/322—Intralayer communication protocols among peer entities or protocol data unit [PDU] definitions
- H04L69/326—Intralayer communication protocols among peer entities or protocol data unit [PDU] definitions in the transport layer [OSI layer 4]
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L63/00—Network architectures or network communication protocols for network security
- H04L63/10—Network architectures or network communication protocols for network security for controlling access to devices or network resources
Definitions
- This invention relates generally to network address translation and, more particularly, relates to generalized network address translation under application program control.
- the private network utilizes one machine 66 to provide the gateway for all of the computers on the private network to reach the public network.
- the address depletion problem is at least slowed.
- This gateway computer 66 runs a program called a network address translator (NAT) that has both a private IP address 62 and a public IP address 68 .
- NAT network address translator
- the messages all appear to have come from the public IP address of the NAT machine.
- the NAT maintains a mapping 74 of the translation from the private to the public IP address so that when messages are received from the public network in response as illustrated by line 76 , the NAT can forward them to the proper client machine. This operation of the NAT is completely transparent to the client computers on the private network, i.e. they each believe that they are communicating directly with the public servers.
- FIG. 3 illustrates this redirect capability of the NAT machine.
- a client machine C 1 attempts to establish a session 78 directly with public server S 1 as indicated by dashed line 80 .
- the message from C 1 is detected by the NAT 66 , it dynamically redirects 82 the message to S 1 and changes the source address as described above.
- the client process does not know that the NAT has changed its messages' source address, and continues to believe that it is communicating directly with the public server.
- Messages from the server S 1 are dynamically redirected 82 to the client C 1 based on the mapping of the address translation. As may be seen from FIG. 4 , this address translation takes place at a low level, e.g. at the kernel level 84 in a Window's architecture.
- the NAT has greatly alleviated the address depletion problem, especially for home and small business networks, its translation of source addresses is fixed within its programming. That is, the traditional NAT does not allow any application control of the address translations that it performs. Additionally, since the address translation is performed on the message packets at such a low level within the kernel 84 , the NAT can add almost no value, other than providing the raw source address translation. The NAT cannot even provide any destination address translations. If added value is desired, such as centralized virus scanning, site blocking, white listing, etc., a proxy must be used instead.
- proxies are application programs existing in the user mode 86 that serve as the interface between the private 60 and the public 64 network (see FIG. 6 ).
- the proxy 88 must be addressed directly by the client machines as seen in the destination address field 90 of message packet 92 , and therefore requires that the client applications C 1 , C 2 , etc. be setup to operate with a proxy 88 .
- Many applications cannot do this, or require specific configuration changes to allow the use of a proxy, and therefore a proxy configuration may not be appropriate for all applications.
- a proxy application 98 all communications are sent to the proxy in the user mode 86 (see FIG. 5 ) as illustrated by lines 94 , 96 .
- the proxy 98 determines whether and to whom to forward the communication on the public network. If the proxy determines that the message may be passed to a server on the public network, the proxy establishes a second session 100 , copies the data to the second session, changes the source and destination address, and sends out the message (see, also FIG. 7 ).
- a client process C 1 establishes a first session 94 with the proxy 88 requesting access to a public server S 1 . If the proxy agrees, a second session 100 is established with the server S 1 on the public network 64 . Since all messages must pass from the kernel-mode network transport, e.g. TCP/IP 102 , to the user-mode proxy 98 , be copied to a second session, transferred back down to the kernel-mode driver 102 , and finally transmitted to the network for the network application's other session, a significant performance degradation occurs.
- the kernel-mode network transport e.g. TCP/IP 102
- the instant invention overcomes these and other problems by providing an application programming interface for translation of transport-layer sessions.
- inventive concepts of the instant invention relate to a generalized network address translator (gNAT) and associated application programming interface (API) that allow both source and destination address translations to be made under application program control. This allows value to be added to the address translation. Additionally, it significantly increases the data flow speed over a traditional proxy since there is no longer a requirement that all information received at the kernel-mode be passed to the user-mode, copied to a second session, and passed back to the kernel-mode for transmission.
- gNAT generalized network address translator
- API application programming interface
- both the source and the destination addresses of message packets may be changed.
- the address changes are mapped in the gNAT, and may result in apparent sessions between different clients and servers.
- the address translation may be made dynamically by the gNAT, under the command of the application, and take place at the kernel level. This significantly improves the data flow of the system by short-circuiting previously required data transfer between the kernel and user modes.
- data transfer through a traditional proxy requires that the incoming messages from a client on a first session be transferred from the kernel-mode to the user-mode so that the proxy can deal with them. The proxy then would copy the message to a second session, and pass it back down to the kernel-mode for transmission to the server. Likewise, information from the server would arrive at the kernel level, be transmitted up to the user-mode for processing by the proxy, be copied to the other session, and be transmitted back down to the kernel-mode for transmission back to the client. Significant transmission delays were incurred as a result of all of these kernel-to-user-mode transitions.
- the system of the instant invention eliminates, or at least greatly reduces, this overhead performance degradation while still adding value to the communication.
- a proxy determines that a second session will be established (or a data session)
- it can command the generalized NAT through the API to perform an address translation at the transmission layer (kernel-mode), and therefore eliminate the transitions between kernel and user modes.
- the generalized NAT receives the incoming message from the client, confirms that it has a mapped translation, performs the address translation, and passes the message along to the server. Since this translation occurs at the kernel level, the data transfer performance is greatly improved.
- server load balancing is achieved by a server load control application that utilizes the gNAT through its associated API to command address translations away from heavily loaded servers to servers with more available capacity. Dynamic load balancing is also possible, dependent on the communication protocol used for the session. That is, a TCP session continues to address all message packets to a server once assigned thereto since the TCP protocol is connection oriented. UDP messages, on the other hand, may be dynamically redirected to an available server at the time of message delivery since UDP is message oriented.
- FIG. 1 is a block diagram generally illustrating an exemplary computer system on which the present invention resides;
- FIG. 2 is a network block diagram illustrating architectural and communicative aspects of a traditional network address translator
- FIG. 3 is an operational block diagram of a traditional network address translator
- FIG. 4 is an architectural diagram illustrating a traditional network address translator
- FIG. 5 is an architectural diagram illustrating a traditional proxy
- FIG. 6 is a network block diagram illustrating architectural and communicative aspects of a traditional proxy
- FIG. 7 is an operational block diagram of a traditional proxy
- FIG. 8 is an architectural diagram illustrating the generalized network address translator and its associated application programming interface of the instant invention.
- FIG. 9 is a functional architectural diagram of the instant invention.
- FIG. 10 is an operational block diagram illustrating an aspect of the instant invention.
- FIG. 11 is an operational block diagram illustrating server load balancing in accordance with the instant invention.
- program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.
- program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.
- program modules may be practiced with other computer system configurations, including hand-held devices, multi-processor systems, microprocessor based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like.
- the invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network.
- program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.
- an exemplary system for implementing the invention includes a general purpose computing device in the form of a conventional personal computer 20 , including a processing unit 21 , a system memory 22 , and a system bus 23 that couples various system components including the system memory to the processing unit 21 .
- the system bus 23 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures.
- the system memory includes read only memory (ROM) 24 and random access memory (RAM) 25 .
- ROM read only memory
- RAM random access memory
- a basic input/output system (BIOS) 26 containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within the personal computer 20 , such as during start-up, is stored in ROM 24 .
- the personal computer 20 further includes a hard disk drive 27 for reading from and writing to a hard disk, not shown, a magnetic disk drive 28 for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk 29 , and an optical disk drive 30 for reading from or writing to a removable optical disk 31 such as a CD ROM or other optical media.
- a hard disk drive 27 for reading from and writing to a hard disk, not shown
- a magnetic disk drive 28 for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk 29
- an optical disk drive 30 for reading from or writing to a removable optical disk 31 such as a CD ROM or other optical media.
- the hard disk drive 27 , magnetic disk drive 28 , and optical disk drive 30 are connected to the system bus 23 by a hard disk drive interface 32 , a magnetic disk drive interface 33 , and an optical disk drive interface 34 , respectively.
- the drives and their associated computer-readable media provide nonvolatile storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the personal computer 20 .
- a number of program modules may be stored on the hard disk, magnetic disk 29 , optical disk 31 , ROM 24 or RAM 25 , including an operating system 35 , one or more applications programs 36 , other program modules 37 , and program data 38 .
- a user may enter commands and information into the personal computer 20 through input devices such as a keyboard 40 and a pointing device 42 .
- Other input devices may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like.
- These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 21 through a serial port interface 46 that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB).
- a monitor 47 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 23 via an interface, such as a video adapter 48 .
- personal computers typically include other peripheral output devices, not shown, such as speakers and printers.
- the personal computer 20 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 49 .
- the remote computer 49 may be another personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the personal computer 20 , although only a memory storage device 50 has been illustrated in FIG. 1 .
- the logical connections depicted in FIG. 1 include a local area network (LAN) 51 and a wide area network (WAN) 52 .
- LAN local area network
- WAN wide area network
- the personal computer 20 When used in a LAN networking environment, the personal computer 20 is connected to the local network 51 through a network interface or adapter 53 .
- the person computer 20 When used in a WAN networking environment, the person computer 20 typically includes a modem 54 or other means for establishing communications over the WAN 52 .
- the modem 54 which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus 23 via the serial port interface 46 .
- program modules depicted relative to the personal computer 20 may be stored in the remote memory storage device. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used.
- generalized network address translation functionality is provided to application processes 104 by the architecture illustrated in FIG. 8 .
- This functionality includes kernel-mode support for application-controlled network address translation through the generalized network address translator (gNAT) 106 , and user-mode implementation of these redirect application programming interface (API) 108 routines.
- gNAT generalized network address translator
- API redirect application programming interface
- the application process 104 is illustrated in the user-mode, it should be recognized by those skilled in the art that the invention is not so limited to only user-mode applications. Indeed, a network application 104 using the services of the gNAT 106 may reside in kernel-mode. In such a situation, the API 108 would also exist in the kernel-mode, and such a situation is within the scope of the instant invention.
- server applications 104 can use the application programming interface 108 to make a group of servers appear to clients as a single server at a single IP address as will be described more fully below with reference to FIG. 11 .
- This functionality may also be used to redirect sessions to support migration of services for enhanced availability.
- This functionality is unique to the system of the instant invention in that the application programming interface 108 allows server applications 104 to gain explicit control over the translation performed by the gNAT 106 .
- network applications that transfer information between separate network sessions typically suffer performance degradation. As discussed, this is because the network data must be received from the network for one of the network application's sessions, delivered to the user-mode network application by the kernel-mode network transport, read by the network application, written to the network application's other session, transferred to the kernel-mode driver, and transmitted to the network for the network application's other session.
- the application programming interface 108 allows such network applications 104 to instruct the network gateway or generalized NAT (gNAT) 106 to translate one network session into another.
- gNAT generalized NAT
- the system of the instant invention comprises a kernel-mode translation module 106 that processes packets received from the network and modifies those packets in real-time, and a user-mode application programming module 108 that implements the interface invoked by network applications 104 .
- the kernel-mode translation module 106 performs the functions of a generalized network address translator (gNAT).
- This module 106 is implemented in a preferred embodiment as a Windows 2000 driver that registers itself as a firewall driver with the Windows 2000 TCP/IP driver 110 .
- gNAT generalized network address translator
- the module 106 supplies an entry-point that is called by the TCP/IP driver 110 upon reception of every incoming packet and before transmission of every outgoing packet. This ensures that all packets will be observed by the kernel-mode translation module 106 before being sent, received, or forwarded.
- Each application-requested translation is recorded by the kernel-mode translation module 106 as a redirect.
- a redirect consists of a description of the session to be translated, along with a description of the translation to be performed.
- the description of the translation may state that when a session is detected with source address S and destination address D, translate it so that the source address becomes S′ and the destination address becomes D′.
- the module 106 detects any new network session, it determines whether there is a redirect that applies to the session. If the module 106 determines that there is a redirect for this session, the redirect is activated.
- the network session is automatically translated and a mapping is created to ensure that the same translation is done for all packets in the session.
- the normal processing is then continued on the session's translated packets, causing them to be delivered locally or forwarded depending on the new source and destination.
- the user-mode application programming module 108 is also preferably implemented as a Windows 2000 library that is loaded by network applications 104 .
- the invention is not so limited to a particular operating system, but is applicable to any operating system which allows network communication. Therefore, the exemplary embodiments described herein are by way of illustration and not by way of limitation.
- a network application 104 calls the library 108 to initialize the kernel-mode translation module 106 , and then creates one or more redirects for the network sessions to be translated.
- the library 108 provides routines to perform at least the initializing and shutting down of the library.
- the initialization ensures that the kernel-mode translation module 106 is loaded and registered in preparation for translating network sessions.
- the shutting down of the library concludes the application's use of the kernel-mode translation module, which may be unloaded if it has no other clients.
- the library 108 also includes routines for creating a redirect for a network session. This operation supplies information identifying a network session, along with information describing the translation to be done for the network session.
- a network session is identified by its protocol, its source IP address, its source port, its destination IP address, and its destination port.
- the protocol indicates the transport-layer protocol of the network session, which may be either TCP or UDP.
- the source IP address indicates the IP address of the network session's source host, and the source port indicates the port number of the network session's source host.
- the destination IP address indicates the IP address of the network session's destination host, and its destination port indicates the port number of the network session's destination host.
- FIG. 9 The operation of translating network sessions at the transport-layer is illustrated in FIG. 9 to which specific reference is now made.
- the data is communicated to the network application 104 .
- this initial data is copied to a second session 114 , and transmitted to the network by the driver 110 .
- This initial operation is much like a traditional proxy, except that the gNAT 106 may transparently redirect the data to the network application 104 if the client process is not aware of the network application.
- the network application 104 is now able to utilize the API 108 to command (illustrated by line 116 ) a dynamic redirect so that further data transitions from kernel-mode to user-mode are no longer required.
- This establishes a fast-path for proxy-like applications in which datagrams must be copied from one session to another. This fast-path transfer is ideal for data streaming applications, on-line gaming, multi-party conferencing, etc.
- the network application 104 Once the network application 104 has determined that a dynamic redirect is appropriate and such has been commanded of the gNAT 106 , it establishes a dynamic redirect mapping 118 . All network data that is received from the network for the proper network application's session (as determined by the gNAT 106 in accordance with its commanded dynamic redirect 118 ) is automatically translated by the gNAT 106 so that its transport-layer address matches the network application's other session. This data is then transmitted to the network for the network application's other session. Graphically, this dynamic redirection at the transport layer is illustrated by line 120 . As may be seen from line 120 , the communication of the data to the network server no longer requires that the data go through two kernel-user mode translations, i.e. the trip to the application 104 is short circuited. Likewise, return data on line 122 may also be dynamically redirected to the client if so commanded by the network application 104 . The approach allows such applications to achieve a considerable improvement in their performance.
- the gNAT 106 performs the dynamic redirection in accordance with the application's command.
- the destination address of the data is simply translated and passed to the client as indicated by line 122 . Significant performance improvement is achieved in this way.
- the system of the instant invention also allows session payload editing.
- Certain applications include addressing information within the data streams of their sessions. For instance, many streaming applications use a control session to establish a secondary data session similar to that described above. This poses a problem for a traditional NAT in its primary application, i.e. transparent sharing of a single Internet connection among multiple machines. When running on clients that are sharing a connection, such applications would send private, unreachable addressing information to remote peers, and the latter would be unable to respond to the clients' requests.
- the system of the instant invention supports an extensible means of modifying a session's application-layer data in flight, beyond the modifications made to the session's network-layer and transport-layer addressing information.
- Extensibility is achieved by allowing third-party drivers to inspect the application-layer data in each packet received for a session, and to edit the application data in each packet.
- These editors register themselves with the gNAT of the instant invention as handlers for a specific TCP/UDP port number, and are henceforth invoked for each message translated in matching sessions.
- FIG. 10 the dynamic redirection made available by the system of the instant invention is illustrated in FIG. 10 .
- a client C 1 may wish to establish a session with server S 1 by addressing messages thereto. This is the apparent session from the client C 1 's point of view, as illustrated by the dashed line 124 .
- the message from C 1 addressed to S 1 is detected by the gNAT machine 126 , it checks to determine if a dynamic redirect exists for such a session.
- a dynamic redirect 128 does exist.
- This dynamic redirect 128 may include a translation of both the source and destination addresses such that the messages are actually forwarded to server S 2 with an indication that the source was C 2 .
- server load balancing may be achieved through the dynamic redirection of the destination addresses based on the protocol of the session, i.e. TCP or UDP.
- TCP sessions are connection based these sessions cannot be dynamically redirected to another server once established if that server becomes overloaded.
- UDP messages are not connection based, each UDP message may be dynamically redirected upon receipt to an available (lightly loaded) server.
- the determination of the dynamic redirect to maintain load balancing of the various servers is made by a director or server load balancing application 134 .
- Information 136 is actively collected from each of the servers, or is maintained internally to the application 134 based on prior redirections. This information on server loading is used to control the redirections to maintain balance of server loading. This redirection may be based on a number of factors and on different criteria. For example, the dynamic redirection may be based on the number of clients served by a server, the processing load being handled by the server regardless of the number of clients served thereby, the type of service required (FTP, HTTP, etc.), priority servicing based on membership, access control, etc.
- balance it is not meant that perfect equality of processing capacity be maintained among all servers. Indeed, it may not be possible to achieve perfect equality, e.g. in a situation where there is one heavy user, and a two light users on a network with four or more servers. In this situation, at least one server will be basically unloaded, one will be heavily loaded, and one or two will be servicing the light users. However, even in this situation, if the dynamic redirection is operating to prevent all of the requests from going to one server, the system is performing server load balancing as used herein. In the illustration of FIG. 11 , a client C 1 wishes to establish a session with server S 1 . However, the server load balancing application 134 has determined that server S 1 is loaded, and that a dynamic redirect 138 to server S 3 should be established. The gateway machine 140 dynamically redirects the session transparently to server S 3 to maintain load balance.
Abstract
An application programming interface for translation of transport-layer sessions is presented. The system includes kernel-mode support for application-controlled network address translation and user-mode implementation of the redirect API routines. An application process may request that a network gateway modify the source and/or destination of a given network session in a manner transparent to the original source host and/or the replacement destination host. With the generalized NAT (gNAT) of the instant invention and its associated API, both the source and the destination addresses of message packets may be changed. The address changes are mapped in the gNAT, and may result in apparent sessions between different clients and servers. Depending on the protocol in use (e.g. TCP or UDP), the address translation may be made dynamically by the gNAT, under the command of the application, and take place at the kernel level.
Description
- This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/858,754, filed Jun. 2, 2004, entitled “APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE AND GENERALIZED NETWORK ADDRESS TRANSLATOR FOR TRANSLATION OF TRANSPORT-LAYER SESSIONS”, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/519,287, filed Mar. 6, 2000, entitled “APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE AND GENERALIZED NETWORK ADDRESS TRANSLATOR FOR TRANSLATION OF TRANSPORT-LAYER SESSIONS”, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,779,035 on Aug. 17, 2004. The entireties of the aforementioned applications are incorporated herein by reference.
- This invention relates generally to network address translation and, more particularly, relates to generalized network address translation under application program control.
- As the number of computers that needed or wanted to be connected to the Internet continued to grow, it soon became obvious that this number could not be accommodated by the number of available IP addresses, known as dotted-quads. In response to this address depletion problem, a method as illustrated in
FIG. 2 was devised whereby a number of computers C1, C2, etc. could be located on a “private”network 60 and would useprivate IP addresses 62 to communicate with each other. These private IP addresses could be reused on other private networks since no one outside the private network could see these addresses. In order to allow the computers on the private network to communicate with other computes S1, S2, etc. on a public network, such as the Internet 64, the private network utilizes onemachine 66 to provide the gateway for all of the computers on the private network to reach the public network. Through the use of theprivate addresses 62 on theprivate network 60 and thegateway computer 66, the address depletion problem is at least slowed. - This
gateway computer 66 runs a program called a network address translator (NAT) that has both aprivate IP address 62 and apublic IP address 68. As computers on the private network attempt to establish sessions with a server on a public network (or another private network), the NAT changes thesource address 70 of themessage packets 72 from the private address of the client computer to its public IP address. In this way, the private IP address is not communicated on the public network. The messages all appear to have come from the public IP address of the NAT machine. The NAT maintains amapping 74 of the translation from the private to the public IP address so that when messages are received from the public network in response as illustrated byline 76, the NAT can forward them to the proper client machine. This operation of the NAT is completely transparent to the client computers on the private network, i.e. they each believe that they are communicating directly with the public servers. -
FIG. 3 illustrates this redirect capability of the NAT machine. Specifically, a client machine C1 attempts to establish asession 78 directly with public server S1 as indicated by dashedline 80. However, when the message from C1 is detected by theNAT 66, it dynamically redirects 82 the message to S1 and changes the source address as described above. The client process does not know that the NAT has changed its messages' source address, and continues to believe that it is communicating directly with the public server. Messages from the server S1 are dynamically redirected 82 to the client C1 based on the mapping of the address translation. As may be seen fromFIG. 4 , this address translation takes place at a low level, e.g. at thekernel level 84 in a Window's architecture. - While the NAT has greatly alleviated the address depletion problem, especially for home and small business networks, its translation of source addresses is fixed within its programming. That is, the traditional NAT does not allow any application control of the address translations that it performs. Additionally, since the address translation is performed on the message packets at such a low level within the
kernel 84, the NAT can add almost no value, other than providing the raw source address translation. The NAT cannot even provide any destination address translations. If added value is desired, such as centralized virus scanning, site blocking, white listing, etc., a proxy must be used instead. - Traditional proxies, as illustrated in
FIG. 5 , are application programs existing in theuser mode 86 that serve as the interface between the private 60 and the public 64 network (seeFIG. 6 ). Unlike NATs, theproxy 88 must be addressed directly by the client machines as seen in thedestination address field 90 ofmessage packet 92, and therefore requires that the client applications C1, C2, etc. be setup to operate with aproxy 88. Many applications cannot do this, or require specific configuration changes to allow the use of a proxy, and therefore a proxy configuration may not be appropriate for all applications. When aproxy application 98 is used, all communications are sent to the proxy in the user mode 86 (seeFIG. 5 ) as illustrated bylines proxy 98 then determines whether and to whom to forward the communication on the public network. If the proxy determines that the message may be passed to a server on the public network, the proxy establishes asecond session 100, copies the data to the second session, changes the source and destination address, and sends out the message (see, alsoFIG. 7 ). In operational terms as illustrated inFIG. 7 , a client process C1 establishes afirst session 94 with theproxy 88 requesting access to a public server S1. If the proxy agrees, asecond session 100 is established with the server S1 on thepublic network 64. Since all messages must pass from the kernel-mode network transport, e.g. TCP/IP 102, to the user-mode proxy 98, be copied to a second session, transferred back down to the kernel-mode driver 102, and finally transmitted to the network for the network application's other session, a significant performance degradation occurs. - The instant invention overcomes these and other problems by providing an application programming interface for translation of transport-layer sessions. Specifically, the inventive concepts of the instant invention relate to a generalized network address translator (gNAT) and associated application programming interface (API) that allow both source and destination address translations to be made under application program control. This allows value to be added to the address translation. Additionally, it significantly increases the data flow speed over a traditional proxy since there is no longer a requirement that all information received at the kernel-mode be passed to the user-mode, copied to a second session, and passed back to the kernel-mode for transmission.
- With the generalized NAT (gNAT) of the instant invention and its associated API, both the source and the destination addresses of message packets may be changed. The address changes are mapped in the gNAT, and may result in apparent sessions between different clients and servers. Depending on the protocol in use (e.g. TCP or UDP), the address translation may be made dynamically by the gNAT, under the command of the application, and take place at the kernel level. This significantly improves the data flow of the system by short-circuiting previously required data transfer between the kernel and user modes.
- As discussed above, data transfer through a traditional proxy (a user-mode application) requires that the incoming messages from a client on a first session be transferred from the kernel-mode to the user-mode so that the proxy can deal with them. The proxy then would copy the message to a second session, and pass it back down to the kernel-mode for transmission to the server. Likewise, information from the server would arrive at the kernel level, be transmitted up to the user-mode for processing by the proxy, be copied to the other session, and be transmitted back down to the kernel-mode for transmission back to the client. Significant transmission delays were incurred as a result of all of these kernel-to-user-mode transitions.
- The system of the instant invention eliminates, or at least greatly reduces, this overhead performance degradation while still adding value to the communication. Specifically, once the application, in this case a proxy, determines that a second session will be established (or a data session), it can command the generalized NAT through the API to perform an address translation at the transmission layer (kernel-mode), and therefore eliminate the transitions between kernel and user modes. The generalized NAT receives the incoming message from the client, confirms that it has a mapped translation, performs the address translation, and passes the message along to the server. Since this translation occurs at the kernel level, the data transfer performance is greatly improved.
- Since the generalized NAT and associated API of the instant invention allows for destination address translation of a message packet, another advantage provided by the instant invention is server load balancing. This balancing is achieved by a server load control application that utilizes the gNAT through its associated API to command address translations away from heavily loaded servers to servers with more available capacity. Dynamic load balancing is also possible, dependent on the communication protocol used for the session. That is, a TCP session continues to address all message packets to a server once assigned thereto since the TCP protocol is connection oriented. UDP messages, on the other hand, may be dynamically redirected to an available server at the time of message delivery since UDP is message oriented.
- Additional features and advantages of the invention will be made apparent from the following detailed description of illustrative embodiments that proceeds with reference to the accompanying figures.
- While the appended claims set forth the features of the present invention with particularity, the invention, together with its objects and advantages, may be best understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:
-
FIG. 1 is a block diagram generally illustrating an exemplary computer system on which the present invention resides; -
FIG. 2 is a network block diagram illustrating architectural and communicative aspects of a traditional network address translator; -
FIG. 3 is an operational block diagram of a traditional network address translator; -
FIG. 4 is an architectural diagram illustrating a traditional network address translator; -
FIG. 5 is an architectural diagram illustrating a traditional proxy; -
FIG. 6 is a network block diagram illustrating architectural and communicative aspects of a traditional proxy; -
FIG. 7 is an operational block diagram of a traditional proxy; -
FIG. 8 is an architectural diagram illustrating the generalized network address translator and its associated application programming interface of the instant invention; -
FIG. 9 is a functional architectural diagram of the instant invention; -
FIG. 10 is an operational block diagram illustrating an aspect of the instant invention; and -
FIG. 11 is an operational block diagram illustrating server load balancing in accordance with the instant invention. - Turning to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to like elements, the invention is illustrated as being implemented in a suitable computing environment. Although not required, the invention will be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a personal computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced with other computer system configurations, including hand-held devices, multi-processor systems, microprocessor based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.
- With reference to
FIG. 1 , an exemplary system for implementing the invention includes a general purpose computing device in the form of a conventionalpersonal computer 20, including aprocessing unit 21, asystem memory 22, and asystem bus 23 that couples various system components including the system memory to theprocessing unit 21. Thesystem bus 23 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. The system memory includes read only memory (ROM) 24 and random access memory (RAM) 25. A basic input/output system (BIOS) 26, containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within thepersonal computer 20, such as during start-up, is stored inROM 24. Thepersonal computer 20 further includes ahard disk drive 27 for reading from and writing to a hard disk, not shown, amagnetic disk drive 28 for reading from or writing to a removablemagnetic disk 29, and anoptical disk drive 30 for reading from or writing to a removableoptical disk 31 such as a CD ROM or other optical media. - The
hard disk drive 27,magnetic disk drive 28, andoptical disk drive 30 are connected to thesystem bus 23 by a harddisk drive interface 32, a magneticdisk drive interface 33, and an opticaldisk drive interface 34, respectively. The drives and their associated computer-readable media provide nonvolatile storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for thepersonal computer 20. Although the exemplary environment described herein employs a hard disk, a removablemagnetic disk 29, and a removableoptical disk 31, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that other types of computer readable media which can store data that is accessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks, Bernoulli cartridges, random access memories, read only memories, and the like may also be used in the exemplary operating environment. - A number of program modules may be stored on the hard disk,
magnetic disk 29,optical disk 31,ROM 24 orRAM 25, including anoperating system 35, one ormore applications programs 36,other program modules 37, andprogram data 38. A user may enter commands and information into thepersonal computer 20 through input devices such as akeyboard 40 and apointing device 42. Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to theprocessing unit 21 through aserial port interface 46 that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). Amonitor 47 or other type of display device is also connected to thesystem bus 23 via an interface, such as avideo adapter 48. In addition to the monitor, personal computers typically include other peripheral output devices, not shown, such as speakers and printers. - The
personal computer 20 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as aremote computer 49. Theremote computer 49 may be another personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to thepersonal computer 20, although only amemory storage device 50 has been illustrated inFIG. 1 . The logical connections depicted inFIG. 1 include a local area network (LAN) 51 and a wide area network (WAN) 52. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet. - When used in a LAN networking environment, the
personal computer 20 is connected to thelocal network 51 through a network interface oradapter 53. When used in a WAN networking environment, theperson computer 20 typically includes amodem 54 or other means for establishing communications over theWAN 52. Themodem 54, which may be internal or external, is connected to thesystem bus 23 via theserial port interface 46. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to thepersonal computer 20, or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used. - In the description that follows, the invention will be described with reference to acts and symbolic representations of operations that are performed by one or more computer, unless indicated otherwise. As such, it will be understood that such acts and operations, which are at times referred to as being computer-executed, include the manipulation by the processing unit of the computer of electrical signals representing data in a structured form. This manipulation transforms the data or maintains it at locations in the memory system of the computer, which reconfigures or otherwise alters the operation of the computer in a manner well understood by those skilled in the art. The data structures where data is maintained are physical locations of the memory that have particular properties defined by the format of the data. However, while the invention is being described in the foregoing context, it is not meant to be limiting as those of skill in the art will appreciate that various of the acts and operation described hereinafter may also be implemented in hardware.
- In accordance with the invention, generalized network address translation functionality is provided to application processes 104 by the architecture illustrated in
FIG. 8 . This functionality includes kernel-mode support for application-controlled network address translation through the generalized network address translator (gNAT) 106, and user-mode implementation of these redirect application programming interface (API) 108 routines. In this way, the system of the instant invention allows anapplication process 104 to request that a network gateway modify the source and/or destination address of a given network session in a manner transparent to the original source host and/or the replacement destination host. This ability made available by the instant invention allows true application-controlled arbitrary redirection on network sessions. While theapplication process 104 is illustrated in the user-mode, it should be recognized by those skilled in the art that the invention is not so limited to only user-mode applications. Indeed, anetwork application 104 using the services of thegNAT 106 may reside in kernel-mode. In such a situation, theAPI 108 would also exist in the kernel-mode, and such a situation is within the scope of the instant invention. - By generalizing the operation of network address translation and putting that operation under
application 104 control, the system of the instant invention allowsnetwork applications 104 to achieve a number of benefits. For instance,server applications 104 can use theapplication programming interface 108 to make a group of servers appear to clients as a single server at a single IP address as will be described more fully below with reference toFIG. 11 . This functionality may also be used to redirect sessions to support migration of services for enhanced availability. This functionality is unique to the system of the instant invention in that theapplication programming interface 108 allowsserver applications 104 to gain explicit control over the translation performed by thegNAT 106. - Further, as described above with reference to the traditional proxy, network applications that transfer information between separate network sessions typically suffer performance degradation. As discussed, this is because the network data must be received from the network for one of the network application's sessions, delivered to the user-mode network application by the kernel-mode network transport, read by the network application, written to the network application's other session, transferred to the kernel-mode driver, and transmitted to the network for the network application's other session. Instead of taking the above steps to copy data from one network session to another, the
application programming interface 108 allowssuch network applications 104 to instruct the network gateway or generalized NAT (gNAT) 106 to translate one network session into another. - As may be seen from the architectural diagram of
FIG. 8 , the system of the instant invention comprises a kernel-mode translation module 106 that processes packets received from the network and modifies those packets in real-time, and a user-modeapplication programming module 108 that implements the interface invoked bynetwork applications 104. The kernel-mode translation module 106 performs the functions of a generalized network address translator (gNAT). Thismodule 106 is implemented in a preferred embodiment as a Windows 2000 driver that registers itself as a firewall driver with the Windows 2000 TCP/IP driver 110. Of course, one skilled in the art will readily appreciate that this module may also be adapted to operate in other operating systems without undue experimentation and without departing from the scope and spirit of the instant invention. Therefore, these alternate embodiments are hereby reserved. In its registration, themodule 106 supplies an entry-point that is called by the TCP/IP driver 110 upon reception of every incoming packet and before transmission of every outgoing packet. This ensures that all packets will be observed by the kernel-mode translation module 106 before being sent, received, or forwarded. - Each application-requested translation is recorded by the kernel-
mode translation module 106 as a redirect. Such a redirect consists of a description of the session to be translated, along with a description of the translation to be performed. For example, the description of the translation may state that when a session is detected with source address S and destination address D, translate it so that the source address becomes S′ and the destination address becomes D′. When themodule 106 detects any new network session, it determines whether there is a redirect that applies to the session. If themodule 106 determines that there is a redirect for this session, the redirect is activated. The network session is automatically translated and a mapping is created to ensure that the same translation is done for all packets in the session. The normal processing is then continued on the session's translated packets, causing them to be delivered locally or forwarded depending on the new source and destination. - The user-mode
application programming module 108 is also preferably implemented as a Windows 2000 library that is loaded bynetwork applications 104. As with the above, the invention is not so limited to a particular operating system, but is applicable to any operating system which allows network communication. Therefore, the exemplary embodiments described herein are by way of illustration and not by way of limitation. Anetwork application 104 calls thelibrary 108 to initialize the kernel-mode translation module 106, and then creates one or more redirects for the network sessions to be translated. - In a preferred embodiment, the
library 108 provides routines to perform at least the initializing and shutting down of the library. The initialization ensures that the kernel-mode translation module 106 is loaded and registered in preparation for translating network sessions. The shutting down of the library concludes the application's use of the kernel-mode translation module, which may be unloaded if it has no other clients. Further, thelibrary 108 also includes routines for creating a redirect for a network session. This operation supplies information identifying a network session, along with information describing the translation to be done for the network session. A network session is identified by its protocol, its source IP address, its source port, its destination IP address, and its destination port. The protocol indicates the transport-layer protocol of the network session, which may be either TCP or UDP. The source IP address indicates the IP address of the network session's source host, and the source port indicates the port number of the network session's source host. The destination IP address indicates the IP address of the network session's destination host, and its destination port indicates the port number of the network session's destination host. The translation to be done for the network session may replace any of the last four parameters, however the transport-layer protocol cannot be changed. Finally, the library provided routines to cancel a redirect for a network session. This operation revokes a previous translation-request issued by theapplication 104. - The operation of translating network sessions at the transport-layer is illustrated in
FIG. 9 to which specific reference is now made. Upon establishment of a network session by the receipt of network data onsession line 112, the data is communicated to thenetwork application 104. Upon processing by thenetwork application 104, this initial data is copied to asecond session 114, and transmitted to the network by thedriver 110. This initial operation is much like a traditional proxy, except that thegNAT 106 may transparently redirect the data to thenetwork application 104 if the client process is not aware of the network application. Unlike a traditional proxy, thenetwork application 104 is now able to utilize theAPI 108 to command (illustrated by line 116) a dynamic redirect so that further data transitions from kernel-mode to user-mode are no longer required. This establishes a fast-path for proxy-like applications in which datagrams must be copied from one session to another. This fast-path transfer is ideal for data streaming applications, on-line gaming, multi-party conferencing, etc. - Once the
network application 104 has determined that a dynamic redirect is appropriate and such has been commanded of thegNAT 106, it establishes adynamic redirect mapping 118. All network data that is received from the network for the proper network application's session (as determined by thegNAT 106 in accordance with its commanded dynamic redirect 118) is automatically translated by thegNAT 106 so that its transport-layer address matches the network application's other session. This data is then transmitted to the network for the network application's other session. Graphically, this dynamic redirection at the transport layer is illustrated byline 120. As may be seen fromline 120, the communication of the data to the network server no longer requires that the data go through two kernel-user mode translations, i.e. the trip to theapplication 104 is short circuited. Likewise, return data online 122 may also be dynamically redirected to the client if so commanded by thenetwork application 104. The approach allows such applications to achieve a considerable improvement in their performance. - This performance improvement becomes vividly apparent if the initial communication on
line 112 opens an ftp control session carrying an ftp get file request. Under a traditional proxy scenario, the ftp data channel created to receive the file requested would first be passed from the kernel-mode to the user-mode to the proxy, and then would be passed back down to the kernel-mode to be forwarded to the client. As may well be imagined, this process incurs significant performance degradation, especially if the file is quite large. Under the system of the instant invention, however, thenetwork application 104 may open a data session which does not require any transitions to the user-mode by commanding a dynamic redirection at the transport-layer. Now, as the data is received from the ftp server, thegNAT 106 performs the dynamic redirection in accordance with the application's command. The destination address of the data is simply translated and passed to the client as indicated byline 122. Significant performance improvement is achieved in this way. - The system of the instant invention also allows session payload editing. Certain applications include addressing information within the data streams of their sessions. For instance, many streaming applications use a control session to establish a secondary data session similar to that described above. This poses a problem for a traditional NAT in its primary application, i.e. transparent sharing of a single Internet connection among multiple machines. When running on clients that are sharing a connection, such applications would send private, unreachable addressing information to remote peers, and the latter would be unable to respond to the clients' requests. To solve this problem, the system of the instant invention supports an extensible means of modifying a session's application-layer data in flight, beyond the modifications made to the session's network-layer and transport-layer addressing information. Extensibility is achieved by allowing third-party drivers to inspect the application-layer data in each packet received for a session, and to edit the application data in each packet. These editors register themselves with the gNAT of the instant invention as handlers for a specific TCP/UDP port number, and are henceforth invoked for each message translated in matching sessions.
- In operational terms, the dynamic redirection made available by the system of the instant invention is illustrated in
FIG. 10 . A client C1 may wish to establish a session with server S1 by addressing messages thereto. This is the apparent session from the client C1's point of view, as illustrated by the dashedline 124. However, when the message from C1 addressed to S1 is detected by thegNAT machine 126, it checks to determine if a dynamic redirect exists for such a session. As illustrated inFIG. 10 , adynamic redirect 128 does exist. Thisdynamic redirect 128 may include a translation of both the source and destination addresses such that the messages are actually forwarded to server S2 with an indication that the source was C2. From the server S2's point of view, anapparent session 130 has been established between S2 and C2. Theactual session 132 that has been established is between C1 and S2, although neither C1 nor S2 knows that this is the case. Each of the required translations is accomplished transparently. - An application of this transparent redirection of destination addresses is illustrated in
FIG. 11 in a multiple server environment. As introduced above, server load balancing may be achieved through the dynamic redirection of the destination addresses based on the protocol of the session, i.e. TCP or UDP. Obviously, since TCP sessions are connection based these sessions cannot be dynamically redirected to another server once established if that server becomes overloaded. However, since UDP messages are not connection based, each UDP message may be dynamically redirected upon receipt to an available (lightly loaded) server. The determination of the dynamic redirect to maintain load balancing of the various servers is made by a director or serverload balancing application 134.Information 136 is actively collected from each of the servers, or is maintained internally to theapplication 134 based on prior redirections. This information on server loading is used to control the redirections to maintain balance of server loading. This redirection may be based on a number of factors and on different criteria. For example, the dynamic redirection may be based on the number of clients served by a server, the processing load being handled by the server regardless of the number of clients served thereby, the type of service required (FTP, HTTP, etc.), priority servicing based on membership, access control, etc. - By using the term balance it is not meant that perfect equality of processing capacity be maintained among all servers. Indeed, it may not be possible to achieve perfect equality, e.g. in a situation where there is one heavy user, and a two light users on a network with four or more servers. In this situation, at least one server will be basically unloaded, one will be heavily loaded, and one or two will be servicing the light users. However, even in this situation, if the dynamic redirection is operating to prevent all of the requests from going to one server, the system is performing server load balancing as used herein. In the illustration of
FIG. 11 , a client C1 wishes to establish a session with server S1. However, the serverload balancing application 134 has determined that server S1 is loaded, and that adynamic redirect 138 to server S3 should be established. The gateway machine 140 dynamically redirects the session transparently to server S3 to maintain load balance. - All of the references cited herein, including patents, patent applications, and publications, are hereby incorporated in their entireties by reference.
- In view of the many possible embodiments to which the principles of this invention may be applied, it should be recognized that the embodiment described herein with respect to the drawing figures is meant to be illustrative only and should not be taken as limiting the scope of invention. For example, those of skill in the art will recognize that the elements of the illustrated embodiment shown in software may be implemented in hardware and vice versa or that the illustrated embodiment can be modified in arrangement and detail without departing from the spirit of the invention. Therefore, the invention as described herein contemplates all such embodiments as may come within the scope of the following claims and equivalents thereof.
Claims (8)
1. A method for facilitating message packet communication between a first application having an internal address valid in an internal address realm and one or more applications in an external address realm, said internal address realm having available to it a set of addresses valid for use in the external address realm, comprising:
providing the internal address realm with a network address translation device having an address translator for translating addresses included in the headers of message packets incoming to and outgoing from the internal address realm in accordance with translation rules that resolve the incompatibility of the internal and external address realms;
providing an address manager for establishing and storing the translation rules, said address manager having access to the set of available addresses valid for use in the external address realm; and
providing a control channel communicating with the address manager for receiving from the first application a service request message for establishing in response to the first application's service request a translation rule specified by the first application,
wherein the address manager transmits to the first application in response to the service request a first address valid for use in the external address realm and wherein the first application causes the first address to be transmitted to the external address realm in an SIP message.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the SIP message is an SIP INVITE message.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first application causes the SIP message to be transmitted to a second application in the external address realm.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first address includes an IP address and a port number.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein an SIP proxy server is invoked in transmitting the SIP message to a second application in the external address realm.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the SIP message is used to establish a peer-to-peer communication session.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the SIP message is used to establish an IP telephonic communication session.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the SIP message is used to establish an instant messaging session.
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Also Published As
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US20040230688A1 (en) | 2004-11-18 |
US20080071915A1 (en) | 2008-03-20 |
US7610389B2 (en) | 2009-10-27 |
US7305477B2 (en) | 2007-12-04 |
US6779035B1 (en) | 2004-08-17 |
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