Internet Engineering Task Force

Host Identity Protocol (hip)

In addition to this official charter maintained by the IETF Secretariat, there is additional information about this working group on the Web at:
Additional HIP Web Page

Last Modified: 2009-04-13

Additional information is available at tools.ietf.org/wg/hip

Chair(s):

Internet Area Director(s):

Internet Area Advisor:

Ralph Droms <rdroms@cisco.com>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion: hipsec@ietf.org
To Subscribe: http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/hipsec
Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/hipsec/current/maillist.html

Description of Working Group:

The Host Identity Protocol (HIP) provides a method of separating the
end-point identifier and locator roles of IP addresses. It introduces
a new Host Identity (HI) name space, based on public keys. The public
keys are typically, but not necessarily, self generated.

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

HIP Architecture (RFC 4423)
Host Identity Protocol (RFC 5201)

There are several 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. |
+-------------------------------------------------------+

At this point, the missing elements for running such wide-scale
experiments are a NAT traversal solution, a description on the
interactions between legacy (i.e., HIP unaware) applications and HIP,
and a native API for HIP. Additionally, the working group will
specify, also in Experimental RFCs, how to build HIP-based
overlays. HIP-based overlays have received a lot of attention in
different fora and are seen as a key area for HIP experimentation
where the benefits HIP brings may be most relevant.

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 at large.

In parallel to this working group, there is an IRTF Research Group
with a broader scope that includes 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:

o Specify how legacy (i.e., HIP unaware) applications can be made to
work with HIP.

o Specify a solution for HIP to traverse legacy (i.e., HIP unaware)
NATs. This solution will be based on existing NAT traversal mechanisms
such as ICE (Interactive Connectivity Establishment).

o Specify a native HIP socket API.

o Specify a framework to build HIP-based overlays. This framework will
describe how HIP can perform some of the tasks needed to build an
overlay and how technologies developed somewhere else (e.g., a peer
protocol developed in the P2PSIP WG) can complement HIP by performing
the tasks HIP was not designed to perform.

o Specify how to generate ORCHIDs from other node identifiers
including both cryptographic ones (leading to cryptographic
delegation) and non-cryptographic ones (e.g., identifiers defined by a
peer protocol).

o Specify how to carry certificates in the base exchange. This was
removed from the base HIP spec so that the mechanism is specified in a
stand-alone spec.

o Specify how to carry upper-layer data over specified HIP
packets. These include some of the existing HIP packets and possibly
new HIP packets (e.g., a HIP packet that occurs outside a HIP base
exchange).

Goals and Milestones:

Done		First version of the HIP basic mobility and multi-homing mechanism specification.
Done		First version of the HIP DNS resource record(s) specification.
Done		First version of the HIP basic rendezvous mechanism specification.
Done		WGLC on the HIP architecture specification
Done		Submit the HIP architecture specification to the IESG
Done		WG LC on the base protocol specification
Done		WG LC on the ESP usage specification
Done		WGLC the HIP registration extensions specification
Done		WGLC the HIP DNS resource record(s) specification
Done		WG LC on the basic HIP rendezvous mechanism specification.
Done		Submit the ESP usage specification to the IESG for Experimental
Done		Submit the base protocol specification to the IESG for Experimental
Done		WG LC on the HIP basic mobility and multi-homing specification.
Done		Submit the HIP registration extensions specification for Experimental
Done		Submit the HIP DNS resource record(s) specification to the IESG for Experimental.
Done		Submit the HIP basic mobility and multihoming specification to the IESG for Experimental.
Done		Submit the basic HIP rendezvous mechanism specification to the IESG for Experimental.
Done		WGLC Legacy Application Interworking specification
Done		Submit the Legacy Application Interworking specification to the IESG
Dec 2008		WGLC Legacy NAT traversal specification
Feb 2009		WGLC Native API specification
Feb 2009		Submit the Legacy NAT traversal specification to the IESG
Apr 2009		Submit Native API specification to the IESG
Apr 2009		WGLC Framework for HIP overlays specification
Apr 2009		WGLC ORCHID generation specification
Apr 2009		WGLC Certs in HIP base exchange specification
Apr 2009		WGLC Upper-layer data transport in HIP
Jul 2009		Recharter or close the WG
Jul 2009		Submit Framework for HIP overlays specification to the IESG
Jul 2009		Submit ORCHID generation specification to the IESG
Jul 2009		Submit Certs in HIP base exchange specification to the IESG
Jul 2009		Submit Upper-layer data transport in HIP to the IESG

Internet-Drafts:

Basic HIP Extensions for Traversal of Network Address Translators (80333 bytes)
Basic Socket Interface Extensions for Host Identity Protocol (HIP) (40916 bytes)
HIP BONE: Host Identity Protocol (HIP) Based Overlay Networking Environment (41440 bytes)

Request For Comments:

Host Identity Protocol (HIP) Architecture (RFC 4423) (60977 bytes)
Host Identity Protocol (RFC 5201) (240492 bytes)
Host Identity Protocol (HIP) Domain Name System (DNS) Extensions (RFC 5205) (34799 bytes)
Host Identity Protocol (HIP) Registration Extension (RFC 5203) (26620 bytes)
Using the Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) Transport Format with the Host Identity Protocol (HIP) (RFC 5202) (68195 bytes)
Host Identity Protocol (HIP) Rendezvous Extension (RFC 5204) (30233 bytes)
End-Host Mobility and Multihoming with the Host Identity Protocol (RFC 5206) (99430 bytes)
Using the Host Identity Protocol with Legacy Applications (RFC 5338) (34882 bytes)