A method and apparatus for managing connections in a communication network

摘要

A method for transmitting higher layer 7 messages such as HTTP and FTP protocols, over a lower layer 4 TCP protocol is disclosed. Packets may be transmitted from a client device 2 to an intermediate node 6 before being transmitted to a server 10, for example. The reverse is also possible. TCP sockets associated with ports at the client device and server represent communications endpoints. TCP breaks up higher layer (HTTP) messages into packets or segments that are transmitted and re-assembled when received. The application uses an HTTP proxy server 12 to revalue packet header values on the basis of prior header values. A third and fourth endpoint are associated with the server. This maintains the semantics of end to end connection such as sequence and acknowledgement numbers.