Abstract
In the current Internet, there are many devices performing
specific functions in the network going beyond simply
routing and forwarding IP packets to their destination.
Common examples for such devices - which are frequently
referred to as middleboxes are firewalls and network address
translators. Middleboxes usually operate exclusively on the
network and transport layer in order to fulfill their task,
mostly taking adequate action on the basis of the addresses
and port numbers of traversing IP packets. However, there
are some services ordinary middleboxes do not get along
with. As a result of that, the corresponding data packets
mostly do not reach their actual destination and hence, a
reasonable communication is normally no longer possible. One
approach for dealing with this problem is the so-called IETF
MIDCOM (MIDdlebox COMmunications) architecture. In this
paper -after elucidating the problem in more detail and
providing an overview of other existing solution
approaches-, we especially focus on MIDCOM and we address
some potential problems concerning the interworking between
this approach and some specific services, including possible
solutions for coping with them. This way, we want to point
out the issues that should be taken into account when
designing new application layer protocols or when extending
existing ones in order to make them fully interoperable with
the MIDCOM architecture.
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