A method of allowing any initiating host to establish communications with any receiving host in a computing network using a Multi-path channel communication protocol. The computing environment also having a gateway device that is electronically connected from one end to at least one initiating host and at the other end to at least one local area network through which a plurality of hosts are connected to the gateway device. The method comprise the steps of first performing an initialization step during information and addresses of all present hosts are determined and stored in a port-sharing table which is kept up to date by regular monitoring of availability status. All host communications is performed entirely through the gateway device. Upon the receipt of a special IP address certain information is obtained from the datagram. Then the address and information of the initiating host is compared to the entries in the portsharing table and if no match is found a new entry is made. All necessary information for the establishment of a successful communication between the two hosts are then provided to the initiating host.