2.3.5 Host Identity Protocol (hip)

Last Modified: 2004-05-18

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Description of Working Group:

The specifications for the architecture and protocol details for these mechanisms consist of:

draft-moskowitz-hip-arch-05.txt (at RFC editor) and draft-moskowitz-hip-08.txt (soon -09.txt)

There are five publicly known, interoperating implementations, some of which are open source.

Currently, the HIP base protocol works well with any pair of co-operating end-hosts. However, to be more useful and more widely deployable, HIP needs some support from the existing infrastructure, including the DNS, and a new piece of infrastructure, called the HIP rendezvous server.

+-------------------------------------------------------+ | The purpose of this Working Group is to define the | | minimal infrastructure elements that are needed for | | HIP experimentation on a wide scale. | +-------------------------------------------------------+

In particular, the objective of this working group is to complete the base protocol specification, define one or more DNS resource records for storing HIP related data, to complete the existing work on basic mobility and multi-homing, and produce Experimental RFCs for these.

Note that even though the specifications are chartered for Experimental, it is understood that their quality and security properties should match the standards track requirements. The main purpose for producing Experimental documents instead of standards track ones are the unknown effects that the mechanisms may have on applications and on the Internet in the large.

It is expected that there will be a roughly parallel, though perhaps considerably broader, IRTF Research Group that will include efforts both on developing the more forward looking aspects of the HIP architecture and on exploring the effects that HIP may have on the applications and the Internet.

The following are charter items for the working group:

1) Complete the HIP base protocol specification. Starting point: draft-moskowitz-hip-08.txt (or newer)

2) Complete the basic mobility and multi-homing support for HIP. Starting point: draft-nikander-hip-mm-01.txt (or newer)

While this work partially overlaps the work in Mobile IP and Multi6 Working Groups, it is very different in the sense that is based on the Experimental HIP specification, and cannot function without it.

3) Define one or more new DNS Resource Records for storing HIP related data, such as Host Identifiers and Host Identity Tags (HITs). This task explicitly excludes the task of defining reverse DNS entries based on HITs.

4) Define a basic HIP rendezvous mechanism.

A basic HIP rendezvous server allows mobile and non-mobile HIP hosts to register their current IP addresses at the server. Other hosts can then send the initial I1 packets to the rendezvous server, which forwards the packets to the HIP host's current address.

This task explicitly excludes solving more general problems, such as the referral problem. Also excluded is the problem of finding the right rendezvous server. It is expected that the DNS records will be used for that.

The Working Group bases all the work on the HIP achitecture specification (as defined above).

Goals and Milestones:

Internet-Drafts:

No Request For Comments

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