The invention is directed to techniques and mechanisms, used in a beginning tunneling device, for detecting an initial request, identifying the initial request as a candidate to be a tunneling request, modifying at least one indicator of an initial header in the initial request to convert the initial request into the tunneling request, and forwarding the tunneling request towards an end tunneling device. The invention is also directed to techniques and mechanisms in an end tunneling device for detecting a tunneling request, identifying the tunneling request as a candidate to be an initial request, modifying at least one indicator of a tunneling header in the tunneling request to convert the tunneling request into the initial request, and forwarding the initial request towards a destination device. The embodiments of the invention add little or no packet overhead.