System and method for compressing content centric networking messages

• US 10,348,865 B2
• Filed: 01/31/2018
• Issued: 07/09/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/04/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Solis, Ignacio
• Primary Examiner(s): Dinh, Khanh Q
• Application Number:
  US15/884,942
• Publication Number:
  US 20180159962A1
• Time in Patent Office: 524 Days
• Field of Search: 709220
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/5652 Cell construction, e.g. including header, packetisation, depacketisation, assembly, reassembly
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/745 Address table lookup; Address filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A computer system can compress or decompress a type-length-value (TLV) component in a message. During operation, the computer can select a compression table associated with a network interface used to send and/or to receive the message, and can search the compression table for an entry that includes a prefix of a value from type-length-value (TLV) component being compressed or decompressed. If compressing the message, the computer may generate a compressed block that corresponds to a compressed version of the TLV component, such that the compressed block includes the compression encoding in place of the prefix in the TLV component'"'"'s value. The computer can also generate a compressed message that includes the compressed block in place of the TLV component, without a compression table.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

an interface configured to send and receive messages in a content centric network;

a memory configured to store compression data;

a processor coupled to the interface, wherein the processor is configured to;

select from a message a type-length-value (TLV) component to compress;

search the compression data for a compression data entry that includes a prefix of the TLV component;

obtain a compression encoding for the TLV component from the compression data entry;

generate a compressed block that corresponds to a compressed version of the TLV component based on the compression encoding; and

generate a compressed message that includes the compressed block.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to:

determine an interface for forwarding the compressed message, based on a name of the compressed message; and

select the compression data that corresponds to the interface.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the processor is configured to:

forward the compressed message via the interface.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to generate the compressed block by:

determining that the compression encoding corresponds to a subset of the TLV component; and

setting a continuation field of the compressed block, wherein the continuation field indicates that additional data follows the compressed block.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the processor is configured to generate the compressed block by:

in response to determining that a suffix of the TLV component does not have a matching entry in the compression data;

determining a size of the suffix;

appending, to an end of the compressed block, a size field that includes the size of the suffix; and

appending the suffix to the size field.

6. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the processor is configured to generate the compressed block by:

in response to determining that a sequence of characters following the TLV component has a matching entry in the compression data;

appending, to the compressed block, a size field with a zero value; and

appending, to the size field, one or more additional compressed blocks that compress a remaining portion of the TLV component.

7. An apparatus comprising:

an interface configured to send and receive messages in a content centric network;

a memory configured to store compression data;

a processor coupled to the interface, wherein the processor is configured to;

receive, via the interface, a compressed message;

select a compression table associated with the interface;

decompress a message portion from a respective compressed block of the compressed message, using the compression data;

in response to determining that the respective compressed block corresponds to a type-length-value (TLV) component;

compute a length of the message portion; and

recreate the TLV component using the message portion and the length; and

generate a decompressed message that includes the TLV component in place of the respective compressed block.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the processor is configured to:

synchronize entries of the compression data with a computer node accessible via the interface.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the processor is configured to decompress the message portion from the respective compressed block by:

detecting that a continuation field of the respective compressed block indicates that additional data follows the respective compressed block; and

reading a size field following the respective compressed block in the compressed message.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the processor is configured to decompress the message portion from the respective compressed block by:

in response to determining that the size field includes a non-zero value;

reading a number of bytes that follow the respective compressed block, corresponding to a size to obtain a data suffix; and

appending the data suffix to the message portion.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the processor is configured to decompress the message portion from the respective compressed block by:

in response to determining that the size field includes a zero value;

decompressing a second compressed block that follows the respective compressed block in the compressed message, to obtain a second message portion; and

appending the second message portion to the message portion.

12. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the processor is configured to decompress the message portion from the respective compressed block to produce a decompressed message portion by:

detecting that a continuation field of the respective compressed block indicates that additional data does not follow the respective compressed block; and

appending the decompressed message portion to the decompressed message.

13. A method comprising:

selecting, by a computer and from a message, a type-length-value (TLV) component to compress;

searching compression data for a compression data entry that includes a prefix of the TLV component;

obtaining a compression encoding for the TLV component from the compression data entry;

generating a compressed block that corresponds to a compressed version of the TLV component based on the compression encoding; and

generating a compressed message that includes the compressed block.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

determining an interface for forwarding the message, based on a message name; and

selecting the compression data that corresponds to the interface.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

in response to generating the compressed message, forwarding the compressed message via the interface.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein generating the compressed block includes:

determining that the compression encoding corresponds to a subset of the TLV component; and

setting a continuation field of the compressed block, wherein the continuation field indicates that additional data follows the compressed block.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein generating the compressed block further includes:

determining whether a suffix of the TLV component does not have a matching entry in the compression data.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein in response to determining that the suffix of the TLV component does not have a matching entry in the compression data:

determining a size of the suffix;

appending, to an end of the compressed block, a size field that includes the size of the suffix; and

appending the suffix to the size field.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein generating the compressed block further includes:

determining whether a sequence of characters following the TLV component have a matching entry in the compression data.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein in response to determining that the sequence of characters following the TLV component have a matching entry in the compression data:

appending, to the compressed block, a size field with a zero value; and

appending, to the size field, one or more additional compressed blocks that compress a remaining portion of the TLV component.