specs

Specifications

The strength of the Open Content Network will lie in a diversity of implementations that each meet different user needs. Thus, unlike many other projects, the focus is not on creating a single kitchen-sink implementation that tries to meet everyone’s needs. Instead, a primary focus will be on creating detailed specifications of the simple, yet powerful, protocols upon which the OCN is built.

Content-Addressable Web Specifications

• HTTP Extensions for a Content-Addressable Web (CAW) – This document describes a set of simple, yet powerful, extensions to HTTP that enable clients to perform secure, distributed downloads.
• Tree Hash EXchange format (THEX) – This document defines a serialization and interchange format for Merkle Hash Trees. These hash trees allow very efficiently, fine-grained integrity checking of content in a distributed network.
• Content Mirror Advertisement Specification – This document defines a flexible lease-based protocol for announcing mirrors in a distributed content network.
• Partial File Sharing Protocol – This document defines HTTP extensions for discovering which bytes in a file are available to be downloaded. This protocol enables “swarm downloads” to be implemented over HTTP.
• WebMUX – This document defines a multiplexing protocol that allows multiple “virtual sockets” to be established over a single TCP connection. WebMUX augments the Content-Addressable Web by allowing connections to be established to hosts behind firewalls and NAT.

If you are have any comments on any of these specifications or are planning on doing an implementation, please join the ocn-dev mailing list. We are particularly interested in hearing about plans to integrate these technologies into Apache , Squid, and Mozilla.