Managing connection requests in a dialup computer network

DETAILED DESCRIPTION It is thus a primary goal of the present invention to manage service requests in a dialup computer network.
It is a more particular object of the invention to redirect connection requests associated with stale IP addresses in a dialup network so that communications between a browser and a local proxy server are maintained.
It is a more specific object of the invention to enhance a sockets implementation so that "binds" to a stale IP address are redirected to a current IP address transparent to the calling application.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a Web appliance with enhanced sockets capability through use of an IP address redirecting mechanism.
Still another more general object is to implement a client side proxy server on a client by binding a browser to the proxy server via a local IP address that may change upon modem reconnection.
Yet another more general object of the invention is to run an HTTP proxy on a client machine transparently to a browser even if the local IP address of the HTTP proxy changes as modem connections are reestablished to a dialup network during a browsing session.
It is still another object of the invention to manage connection requests to and from a client side proxy server where the client protocol stack does not support a loopback address for the proxy server.
These and other objects of the invention are provided in a method of managing connection requests from an application supported on a client.
The client has a modem connectable to at least one server via a dialup computer network.
According to the method, a list is maintained of the local Internet Protocol (IP) addresses assigned as modem connections are established to the dialup computer network during a session.
The list is preferably in Last in, First Out (LIFO) order and includes a latest IP address as the last entry and one or more stale IP addresses.
In response to a connection request associated with a stale IP address, the stale IP address is mapped to the latest IP address