There lies a challenge to develop a technique of effectively establishing a direct communication link between client devices in a communication network. In some implementations, an associated STA is a client device which is associated with a particular access point (AP). A non-associated STA is a client device which is not associated with the AP. A tunneled probe request may be transmitted by an associated STA through the AP to be broadcast to other associated STAs. In some implementations, an active scan may be combined with a tunneled probe request in order to establish a communication link between an associated STA and a non-associated STA.