KITE¶

The KITE protocol allows building forwarding paths for prefixes using "authenticated" Interest-Data exchanges between a mobile producer (MP) and a trusted Rendezvous Server (RV).

An MP sends a KITE request (a command Interest that follows a special naming convention), which is forwarded to the RV because the RV announces a prefix of the name. The KITE request leaves traces in the stateful forwarding plane (PIT entries), constructing a forwarding path for Data to be forwarded to the MP. The RV will verify the information carried in the KITE request (primarily the signature, and thus the term "authenticated Interest-Data exchange"), and respond with a KITE acknowledgment, a Data packet, for legitimate KITE requests. The KITE acknowledgment sent by the RV will trigger intermediate forwarders to save the reversed forwarding path for Data as Interest forwarding information, for a prefix specified by the name of the Interest-Data exchange.

KITE Request (KiteRequest)¶

A KITE request is essentially a command Interest, i.e., a signed Interest (http://named-data.net/doc/NDN-packet-spec/current/signed-interest.html) with extra information such as nonce and timestamp to for replay-attack prevention. A KITE request is signed and sent by an MP to be verified by an RV,

An Interest packet that satisfies the following requirements is a KITE request:

• Conforms to signed Interest specifications.
• With the trailing Interest signing name components removed, the remaining leading part of the name conforms to KITE request name specifications (see below).
• The ApplicationParameters contains the expiration period for the forwarding path (optional, details TBD).

KITE request name specifications:

• Starts with an RV prefix, i.e., a prefix announced by an RV.
• Followed by a "32=KITE" keyword name component.
• Followed by a producer suffix, i.e., one or more arbitrary name components. The concatenation of an RV prefix and a producer suffix in the same KITE request name is the producer prefix specified in this name. The forwarding path to be set up is for the producer prefix.
• End with two name components for replay-attack prevention: timestamp and nonce.

KITE Acknowledgment (KiteAck)¶

A KITE acknowledgment is a Data packet sent by the RV for an Interest (a KITE request) that passes verification. A KITE request that passes the verification is supposed to be sent by the owner of the prefix for which the forwarding path is set up.

A Data packet that satisfies the following requirements is a KITE acknowledgement (note that a KITE acknowledgment is always generated in response to a KITE request):

• Has the same name with a KITE request.
• ContentType is 6 (KITE Acknowledgment).
• Carry a prefix announcement object as payload, and the "announced prefix" indicated by the PA object must be the same as the name of the KiteAck minus the "32=KITE" keyword component (excluding Interest signature related components and the Parameters digest component).
• The payload only consists of a prefix announcement object in data form, no other content.