A method comprising receiving a request for a connection over a network to an address is disclosed. The network conforms to a first network protocol, and the address conforms to a second network protocol. A field is compared to the network address. If the field matches the network address, a connection is established with a network node corresponding to the file. According to another embodiment of the invention, a Fibre Channel (FC) Virtual Interface (VI) is used to forward Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) packets.