Netsukuku
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Netsukuku is a P2P network system, originally developed by FreakNet MediaLab, designed to handle a large number of nodes with minimal CPU and memory resources. It can be easily used to build a worldwide distributed, anonymous and not controlled network, separated from the Internet, without the support of any servers, ISP's or authority controls. Netsukuku replaces the level 3 of the OSI model with another routing protocol.
Netsukuku is based on a very simple idea: extending the concept of Wi-Fi mesh networks to a global scale, although not necessarily using that medium. With the use of specialised routing protocols and algorithms, the current Wi-Fi technologies can be exploited to allow the formation of a global P2P wireless network, where every peer (node) is connected to its neighbours.
Other media will be equally functional to interconnect nodes, as the interaction is independent of that which it is transmitted through, but it is believed that Wi-Fi will be the most practical for ordinary users to take advantage of. Once greater proliferation has been achieved, it may become common to see some nodes establishing high-speed landline connections between each other in the interest of increasing network bandwidth for connections over it and lowering latencies.
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[edit] QSPN
The second version of the algorithm was released in October 2006: QSPN v2
QSPN (Quantum Shortest Path Netsukuku) is the routing algorithm used by Netsukuku to discover the best efficient routes on the network. It must be capable of finding the routes without overloading the network or the nodes' CPU and memory resources. The name is derived from the way its principal component works: the tracer packet (TP).
A TP is a packet that gains a "quantum" of information at each hop, hence its name. There are different types of TP, all sharing the same TP restrictions but in a different way.
- Acyclic Tracer Packet (ATP)
- Continuous Tracer Packet (CTP)
- Extended Tracer Packet (ETP)
[edit] Properties of the TP
- A TP is never sent to a specific destination, instead is used to flood the net.
- A TP flood passes only once through each node in the net.
- A TP is never forwarded to the starting flood node.
[edit] Interesting Information Rule
A TP is only interesting when it contains at least one new route in its body. If a TP is uninteresting by the node A, then it will be also uninteresting to the other nodes, since the TP contains routes which were already received and forwarded by the node A. The TP is dropped if it's considered uninteresting.
[edit] ANDNA
ANDNA (Abnormal Netsukuku Domain Name Anarchy) is the distributed, non-hierarchical and decentralised system of hostname management in Netsukuku. It substitutes the DNS in the Netsukuku realm. The ANDNA database is scattered inside all the Netsukuku network but in the worst case, every node will have to use few hundred kilobytes of memory.
ANDNA works in the following way: in order to resolve a hostname, it is just necessary to calculate its hash. The hash is nothing more than a number (IP) and the node related to that IP is called andna_hash_node. The hash_node will keep a small database which associates all the hostnames related to it with the IP of the node, which has registered the same hostnames.
[edit] Netsukuku RFC
Netsukuku is in constant development, a list of RFC that propose new functionality can be found here: NTK_RFC.
[edit] See also
- Netsukuku main site
- Netsukuku documentation
- Kuro5hin review on 10-8-2005
- International Telecommunication Union within the context of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), aiming to encourage new projects and partnerships to bridge the digital divide, Netsukuku is considered by the ITU an effective initiative regarding the information and communication infrastructure
