Method, apparatus and system for answering requests on peer-to-peer overlay network

A peer on a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) overlay network, comprising:

• an answering module, adapted to:
• process a request received by the peer, and generate an answer;
• and
• an answer sending module, adapted to send the answer generated by the answering module according to an intermediate-peer address in the request received by the peer.

A peer on a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) overlay network, comprising:

• a sending-peer address processing module, adapted to determine an address of a sending peer according to a source Internet Protocol (IP) address and a port number in a request received by the peer;
• a request forwarding module, adapted to forward the request received by the peer;
• and
• an answer forwarding module, adapted to forward the answer received by the peer to the sending peer according to the sending peer address determined by the sending-peer address processing module.

A system for answering requests on a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) overlay network, comprising:

• a sending peer, adapted to:
• generate a request that carries addresses of intermediate peers, and send the request to a neighboring peer;
• a destination peer, adapted to:
• receive the request forwarded by a peer on the P2P overlay network, process the request and generate an answer, and send the answer to an intermediate peer according to the address of the intermediate peer in the request;
• and
• the intermediate peer, adapted to forward the received answer to the sending peer.

A system for answering requests on a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) overlay network, comprising:

• a sending peer, adapted to:
• generate a request that carries addresses of intermediate peers, and send the request to an intermediate peer;
• the intermediate peer, adapted to:
• use a source Internet Protocol (IP) address and a port number of the request as address information of the sending peer, and send the request to a neighboring peer on the P2P overlay network;
• receive an answer from a destination peer, and send the answer to the sending peer according to the address information of the sending peer;
• and
• the destination peer, adapted to receive the request forwarded by a peer on the overlay network, process the request and generate the answer, and send the answer to the intermediate peer according to the address of the intermediate peer in the request.