Middlebox communications (MIDCOM)

The generic problem of enabling complex applications through the middleboxes is being addressed by the Middlebox communications (MIDCOM) Working Group, they do so via MIDCOM agents which perform ALG functions, logically external to a middlebox [RFC 3303]. See also [Stucker 2013].

Slide Notes

P. Srisuresh, J. Kuthan, J. Rosenberg, A. Molitor, and A. Rayhan, “Middlebox Communication Architecture and framework”, IETF RFC 3303, August 2002 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3303.txt Links to an external site.

B. Stucker, H. Tschofenig, and G. Salgueiro, Analysis of Middlebox Interactions for Signaling Protocol Communication along the Media Path, Internet-Draft, MMUSIC, May 30, 2013, Expired: December 01, 2013, draft-ietf-mmusic-media-path-middleboxes-07.txt https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-mmusic-media-path-middleboxes/ Links to an external site.

Transcript

[slide381] There's an approach called middle box communication, where now what we do is we introduce a firewall control proxy. So instead of having SIP application layer gateway proxy, we simply have the firewall proxy we communicate within to tell it to open the ports for us. So we basically say, hey, set up a binding. It's going to open a given set of ports for us. Use it. Acknowledge it. The traffic passes through. And then when we're finished, we close it, removing the binding, the holes in the firewall close.