Method and apparatus for serverless internet protocol address discovery using source address of broadcast or unicast packet

摘要

An IP address is automatically discovered by a network endpoint, such as a PC or router. The endpoint listens for a broadcast network packet or promiscuously listens for a unicast network packet sent from a web browser from a host system. The network packet includes the IP address for the host system and a preselected IP domain name. The IP domain name is used to initiate the address discovery in the endpoint. The IP address from the host system is used by the endpoint as a seed for generating a proposed IP network address. The endpoint then uses an address resolution protocol (ARP) to determine whether the proposed IP address is currently assigned to any other device in the network. If no device in the network responds to the ARP request, the proposed IP address constitutes a unique address on a network segment. Because the proposed address is not used by any other device in the subnetwork, it is self-assigned to the endpoint.