Stateless Information-Centric Network Router
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current information-centric networks (ICNs) face issues with maintaining large Pending Interest Tables (PITs), leading to increased storage overhead, potential for Interest looping, and vulnerability to attacks like Interest flooding, due to their stateful forwarding plane.
Innovation Solution
The CCN-GRAM system operates with a stateless forwarding plane using destination-based forwarding tables and anonymous datagrams, eliminating the need for PITs by assigning continuous identifiers to neighbors and using a distance-based loop-free forwarding strategy to prevent Interest looping.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If routers maintain a Pending Interest Table (PIT) to store Interest state information, then content delivery and routing can be achieved, but storage overhead increases significantly and the system becomes vulnerable to attacks
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the stateful PIT mechanism from the forwarding plane and replaces it with a stateless approach using destination-based forwarding tables. Instead of maintaining per-Interest state information in PITs, the system uses anonymous datagrams with destination addresses that enable forwarding without storing Interest state, thereby eliminating the storage overhead while preserving content delivery functionality
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the fundamental parameter of the forwarding state from per-Interest PIT entries to destination-based forwarding table entries. By transforming the state representation from detailed Interest information to aggregated destination routes, the system achieves comparable reliability with significantly reduced storage requirements
2Adaptability or versatility
If routers maintain large PITs to handle numerous Interests, then content routing is enabled, but the system becomes vulnerable to Interest flooding attacks
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes the PIT-based stateful mechanism that creates security vulnerabilities. By extracting the state maintenance function and replacing it with stateless anonymous datagram forwarding, the system eliminates the attack surface associated with PIT flooding while maintaining the ability to handle diverse content requests through destination-based routing
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs anonymous datagrams that are discarded after single-use forwarding without requiring persistent state storage. These short-living forwarding objects enable versatile Interest handling while minimizing security exposure, as each datagram is processed and discarded without creating vulnerable persistent state structures
3Ease of operation
If a stateful forwarding plane is used with PITs, then Interest forwarding can be tracked, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the complex PIT-based state tracking mechanism and replaces it with simpler stateless forwarding using destination-based tables. The forwarding tracking function is maintained through anonymous datagram routing information rather than persistent PIT state, reducing device complexity while preserving operational capability
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of tracking Interests forward through PIT state maintenance, the patent inverts the approach by using destination-based forwarding tables that guide datagrams without requiring forward tracking state. This inversion simplifies the forwarding plane by eliminating the need to maintain and update PIT entries for each Interest
Data Source
AI summary
One embodiment of the present invention provides a router in an information-centric network (ICN). The router includes a receiving module configured to receive an interest for a piece of content. The interest indicates a name associated with the piece of content. The router also includes an interest-processing module configured to: determine whether the interest can be forwarded; in response to determining that the interest can be forwarded to a second router, select an identifier from a set of identifiers assigned to the router by the second router; and process the interest by inserting the identifier into the interest. The router further includes a forwarding module configured to forward the processed interest to the second router.