Applying a cryptographic namespace to applications

Abstract

The Host Identity Protocol (HIP) is a promising solution for dynamic network interconnection. HIP introduces a namespace based on cryptographically generated Host Identifiers. In this paper, two different API variants for accessing the namespace are described, namely the legacy and the native APIs. Furthermore, we present our implementation experience on applying the APIs to a number of applications, including FTP, telnet, and personal mobility. Well-known problems of callbacks and referrals, i.e., passing the IP address within application messages, are considered for FTP in the context of HIP. We show that the callback problem is solvable using the legacy API. The APIs are important for easy transition to HIP-enabled networks. Our experimentation with well-known network applications indicate that porting applications to use the APIs is realistic.