Internet Infrastructure
- Atom-Based Routing -- Improving global internet routing
Atom-Based Routing aims at significantly reducing the growth of BGP table size and updates, in particular in the internet backbone, through the use of BGP policy atoms. The intent is to devise a routing protocol (or adapt a routing protocol such as BGP) which makes use of atoms to achieve a protocol of lower complexity.
- BIND DLZ -- BIND Dynamically Loadable Zones
BIND DLZ allows DNS data to be modified without interrupting the DNS server's normal operation. It accomplishes this by moving DNS data out of BIND's in memory database into an external database. BIND DLZ works with a large variety of databases and has made flexibility a priority in its design. Additionally, BIND DLZ makes available an API which can be used to create custom drivers to access nearly any database, or provide other functionality such as DNS load balancing.
- Bricophone -- The Bricophone Project
The Bricophone is a community-oriented mobile phone infrastructure in Open Source. It is a low cost, low energy, open hardware, open source project built for communities up to ten thousand people within regional distances. The characteristic of the Bricophone infrastructure is that it does not require any static infrastructure like relays, antennas, or digital data centers. This provides the opportunity for special uses in poor communities, mass rescueing in disastered areas, and cultural and social activities like festivals and other mass events.
- CuteHIP
The project of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT) will create a lightweight implementation of Host Identity Protocol (HIP) on Java.
Existing HIP implementations have been evolving since 2004 and became complex and hard to maintain and use. There is a need for new simple implementation of RFC5201-5202 that is cross-platform (not bound to any Operating System) and not limited to run on any vendor hardware. The project will make CuteHIP implementation using Java. It will be based on SourceForge open repository for public access and contributions.
Although there are more open-source HIP implementations (HIPL, OpenHIP, Hip4inter.net), those are limited to certain platforms like Linux; no implementation is written on Java yet. The CuteHIP implementation shall be interoperable with existing implementations but shall be new and hence free of accumulated bugs.
- DNSCCM -- NSCP for BIND and NSD
There is a clear need for a common DNS(SEC) name server management and control system. DNS is such a vital part of any organization's network infrastructure that it is common to run multiple different DNS implementations. However, each implementation has its own distinctive configuration and control utilities. A common interface should greatly simplify management of diverse infrastructures.
In 2007, the IETF working group determined there was a need for standardized management of nameservers for DNS and in 2011 the requirements draft addressing this got accepted as RFC6168. An IEFT draft is under development, which proposes a Nameserver Control Protocol (NSCP) to meet these requirements.
The primary focus of this prokect is to develop an implementation of NSCP for current releases of BIND and NSD, the most widely used open source authoritative nameservers.
- Fairwaves
Fairwaves project is aiming at removing one more obstacles on the way to cheap and ubiquitous wireless networks --absence of free (open source), yet production quality building blocks for wireless equipment. There are plenty of expensive proprietary solutions you can use for coding.
Fairwaves is set to develop an Open Source framework for PHY and MAC levels of wireless protocols which will allow "free as in beer" development. It should foster innovation in the wireless communications and allow more projects like OpenBTS and Opendigitalradio to emerge.
- GISS -- Global Independent Streaming Support
G.I.S.S. is an international network of free media activists, joining to build an infrastructure for free media experiences, radios and televisions like the Horitzo TV project (Spanish) in Barcelona. More concretely, right now the G.I.S.S. is an infrastructure with different components and tools for setting up an independent radio or TV channel easily.
New work to be done in the course of the project focuses on the following aspects:
- Improvement of the topology of the network: currently all transmissions are passing through a main server and the upload to that server is saturated, so we should introduce new main servers and rebuild the architecture of the servers.
- Development of a specific version of icecast: for now the version we use lacks some essential features for us like the encryption of IPs (anonymizing like requested by the Indymedia network), a more specific load-balancing mechanism (using the instant load of each server) and more complementary features regarding the master/slave configuration.
- The live CD is in a usable state, but it should be improved to include more audio-visual and streaminig tools, like Cinelerra, free, gstreamer and other useful tool for video editing and broadcasting.
- Another component of the system is a kind of 'mediabase' archive tool, similar to you-tube but using only free software and Ogg/Theora format. Although a prototype already exists, it should be improved and be customizable for every user. The new GPL package will be called 'Distributed Multimedia Database System' (DMDBS).
- Most of our activities are located in Europe and South America, we would like to extend that network to other countries (India, Bolivia, Morocco). We already have some contacts to organize some workshops there.
- IIDS -- Interactive Intelligent Distributed Systems
The IIDS research group at the Technical University of Delft (TUDelft) initially started as an NLnet initiative in 2000 at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
The group's research focuses on management of large-scale interactive distributed systems, in particular on mobile agent systems. Self-management is the ultimate goal. The AgentScape framework, services, applications, and analyses of legal implications of the use of agent systems, are all factors to increase the potential of this new technology.
- ISC BIND 9 -- Development of BIND 9
BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) is an implementation of the Domain Name System (DNS) protocols and provides an openly redistributable reference implementation of the major components of the Domain Name System.
The BIND DNS Server is used on the vast majority of name serving machines on the Internet, providing a robust and stable architecture on top of which an organization's naming architecture can be built. The resolver library included in the BIND distribution provides the standard APIs for translation between domain names and Internet addresses and is intended to be linked with applications requiring name service.
- LOAP -- The DNS: Life of a Protocol
"The DNS: Life of a Protocol" is the working title for a new project by Carl Malamud. This technopolitical analysis of the Internet from the viewpoint of the life of one protocol attempts to provide some insight into both technology and politics.
- Meshtool
Currently there are no comprehensive tools for management of meshed networks. This project aims at spreading the use of open, community oriented mesh network technology by providing the people behind the mesh with tools to manage and develop it.
Meshtool will assist in mesh network monitoring, administration and research. Current mesh networks are mostly comprised of wireless routers but Meshtool is designed to handling various types of devices, including mobile devices such as mobile phones & Wi-Fi equipped vehicles.
Key Features planned:
- Mesh Network Monitoring & Administration: mainly wireless routers, but mobile devices as well.
- Reference implementation of the Common Node Database Schema (CNDS).
- Geographic Information Systems (GIS) support.
- Facilitate mesh research through the Live Mesh Test Framework (LMTF).
- 2D and 3D map viewers via Nasa World Wind Integration.
- Network data Visualization.
- Virtualized mesh node Support.
- nat64 -- Open source IPv4-IPv6 translation gateway
IPv4 and IPv6 networks are incompatible. The IETF recommendation has usually been to rely on dual-stack deployment: have both networks coexist until IPv6 takes over Ipv4. However, IPv6 growth has been much slower than anticipated. Therefore, new IPv6-only deployments face an interesting challenge communicating with the predominantly IPv4-only rest of the world. A similar problem is encountered when legacy IPv4-only devices will need to reach the IPv6 Internet. This project is about implementing an open-source NAT64 gateway to run on open-source operating systems such as Linux and BSD.
The NAT64 Open Source implementation would benefit the engineering of the solution as well as providing initial implementation feedback. Moreover, an Open Source implementation will become the reference for the whole community, such as end users, network administrators, and protocol designers. Users will finally be able to deploy IPv6 connectivity without fear of being cut off from the rest of the Internet.
In many situations, dual-stack deployment is not possible. For these cases, a gateway such as the proposed one is needed. It will enable completely new deployments, and users will automatically benefit. Moreover, an Open Source implementation will empower users by giving them access to the source code and letting them customize the gateway to accommodate new scenarios.
The implementation will target both Linux and BSD (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD). It will be portable to other POSIX systems. DNS ALG functionality will be added to Bind and Unbound. A patch will be produced and submitted to the Bind project and to the Unbound project for inclusion in their main distributions. IPv4/IPv6 translation functionality will be added to the Linux and BSD kernels.
- NetEventKit -- Network Event Kit
The Network Event Kit (NEK) is a kit allowing to quickly and cheaply build a network for various types of events. This kit will offer both cabled and over-the-air infrastructure.
Besides to building an Open Source Network Event Kit, the purpose is to gain knowlegde and experience in a practial setup that has value for Open communities.
- NLnet Labs -- Foundation Stichting NLnet Labs
NLnet Labs was founded in 1999 by Stichting NLnet to develop, implement, evaluate, and promote new protocols and applications for the Internet. Its activities are focused on topics directly relating to the Internet's infrastructure, such as DNS, DNSsec, IPv6, and routing.
- OpenBTS-HW -- OpenBTS hardware
This project is a part of a bigger effort to create a completely open GSM network, from a low level hardware to high level software.
The network is intended to be built with open-source software, such as OpenBTS, OpenBSC, FreeSwitch, Linux, etc. The hardware part of the project is more complex, because to date there is no open hardware for GSM base-stations.
As a practical implementation this will set up completely open network providing affordable mobile service to people from Mayotte island.
- SCTP-Linux -- SCTP on Linux
The Internet transport layer has been extremely rigid since its inception. The very diverse requirements of today’s applications are mapped to only two services, provided by the two protocols that are broadly available, TCP and UDP.
The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) offers promising benefits to applications, but faces significant deployment problems. One of these problems is certainly related to shortcomings of its Linux implementation ("LKSCTP"), which cause it to perform much worse than TCP under most circumstances. It is obvious that, for SCTP to be an attractive option for application designers, it should always perform at least as good as TCP.
The two most important TCP features that are not required according to the standard are missing in LKSCTP: auto-buffer tuning and pluggable congestion control. In this project:
- Auto-buffer tuning will be added to SCTP.
- Work towards adding pluggable congestion control will be carried out.
- An investigation of other, less significant differences between TCP and SCTP in Linux will be carried out.
- Serval
Communicate anywhere, any time ... without infrastructure, without mobile towers, without satellites, without wifi hotspots, and without carriers. Use existing off-the-shelf mobile cell phone handsets.
Serval enables mobile communications no matter what your circumstance: mobile communications in the face of disaster, in the face of poverty, in the face of isolation, in the face of civil unrest, or in the face of network black-spots. In short, Serval provides resilient mobile communications for all people.
This system is the only mesh mobile telephony system that works on ordinary handsets, and is open source. It lets you use existing telephone numbers and can work without needing an internet connection.
- TCP-multipath -- TCP multipath
The goal of the project is to implement open source extension of TCP/IP stack to support multipath communication in the Internet. With this approach, users will be able to improve their connection speed and reliably by utilizing several network interfaces simultaneously and receiving aggregate bandwidth.
Modern mobile devices, equipped with several network interfaces, as well as multihomed residential Internet hosts are capable of maintaining multiple simultaneous attachments to the network. This can be favorable for applications that are aiming to increase the overall throughput or minimize the delays caused by roaming between the networks.
This project will design and evaluate an efficient and secure multipath solution on a wedge-layer. Based on Host Identity Protocol (HIP) the design will support multihoming, mobility, NAT traversal, advanced security features, network coding for efficiency in lossy networks and will match the requirements of the most modern applications.
Who will benefit? General network users requiring faster Internet access e.g. over two ADSL lines at home, service provides in Internet requiring higher fault tolerance for their services, network operators providing high speed connectivity e.g. over WLAN and 3G combined.
- Wisper -- Long distance wifi IPv6 internet infrastructure
Wisper is a concept (an idea) in the field of long distance wifi network infrastructures with a practical and concrete internet service provision goal. Wisper is the buzz word in order to stimulate concrete project proposals and cooperative initiatives focussed on creating a new mesh-type: solely based on wifi and IPv6 internet connections.
The access nodes in Wisper are projected to be low cost (US$ 100) wifi boxes some Public Domain (fully self-configuring) networking software (probably on Linux and/or BSD OS's). Access and usage to the Wisper network should be free of charge. The plan is to create clouds of Wisper nodes. And then clouds of Wisper-clouds, expanding all over the globe.
- XMPP/SIP -- Jingle XMPP/SIP SIMPLE gateway
The project will create a service to connect XMPP and SIP streams for audio, chat, and presence. For example, users will get the ability to connect any SIP end-point with Google XMPP clients.
Produced is software (with an Open Source license) that can be packaged either as a server or a client to be run on end-user computers. The software will work with little or no configuration. It will allow users to share contacts and establish chat and audio sessions without having to bother of the protocol used to address buddies in user@domain format.
More specific, the server implementation will be bundled with SylkServer, a project previously funded by NLnet for Chat and File Transfer using MSRP protocol. The server will be crafted to act as a black-hole between SIP and XMPP worlds. By simply pointing the appropriate DNS record of a domain to the server, any session request made with either SIP or XMPP protocol will get bridged to the other protocol.