Interworking between Satellite Performance Enhancing Proxies and Multilayer IPSec (ML-IPSec)

Abstract

Abstract Satellite networks use intermediate devices (Performance Enhancing Proxies, PEPs) for better performance of the TCP/IP data and web browsing applications. PEPs can be classified into transport (such as TCP) and application (such as HTTP) layer PEPs. Such device can improve the performance of today’s widely used web caches. IPSec is used for providing security services between pair of gateways, pair of end nodes or between an end node and a gateway in TCP/IP networks. However all upper layers headers (above IP) are encrypted and are not accessible at intermediate nodes. This paper presents the impact of using IPSec and Transport Layer Security on PEPs. It presents the concept Multi Layer IPSec, where the IP datagram is divided into three zones to enable PEPs to access the TCP and HTTP header information, while protecting the end user data with a separate encryption key.