The Kame Project

Introduction

The KAME project offers free Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) and Internet Protocol security (IPsec) protocol stack implementation for the different variants of Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Unix operating system. The KAME project is a Japanese initiative where the term 'KAME' is derived from the name of the place 'Karigome' where the KAME project offices are located. KAME is also a Japanese word for turtles.

The BSD Unix as well as the KAME project are open source initiatives. The open source initiative promotes the development and distribution of software whose source code is freely available to the general public without any underlying intellectual property (IP) restrictions on its modification or use.

Earlier, majority of the open source projects focused on the BSD Unix platform. However, with the increasing popularity of Linux as the flag bearer of the open source movement, the research projects are increasingly focusing upon this Operating System (OS) platform to present innovative solutions to the contemporary problems in the IT domain while promoting the open source movement in the process.

The KAME project started in April 1998 and finished in March 2006. Initially, the KAME project was expected to complete in two years time (April 1998 - March 2000). However, during the process, it got several two-year extensions. Finally, the KAME project took eight years to complete in March 2006. The KAME project was a collaborative effort of the following Japanese organizations:


Alaxala Network Corp.
Fujitsu Ltd.
Hitachi Ltd.
Internet Initiative Japan Inc.
Keio University
NEC Corp.
University of Tokyo
Toshiba Corp.
Yokogawa Electric Corp.

KAME project - The research domain

The research undertaken by KAME project has offered promising results in the form of the following developments:

Core or Kernel:


Development of a steady Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) platform
Development of Internet Protocol security (IPsec) protocol having IPv4
and IPv6 platform interoperability features
Development of IP Payload Compression (IPComp) protocol
Development of IPv4-IPv6 TCP relay named "Faith" for border routers in the network
Integration and deployment of Alternate Queuing framework (ALTQ)
Development of IPv6 neighbor discovery mechanism used by the network routers
Development of mobile host support in Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP)
Development of 6-to-4 IPv6 packet encapsulation through tunneling mechanism
Rapid development of Mobile IPv6 and NEtwork MObility (NEMO) support in IPv6
Development of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) friendly environment for network tunnels
Userland and others:

Successful development of IKE daemon "Racoon" with promising interoperability parameters
Development of simple network applications with IPv6 support
Development of Point-to-Point (PPP) protocol for various platforms such as the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and BSDI
Successful development of DNS resolver to facilitate IPv4and IPv6 interoperability
Development of Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol version 6 (DHCPv6)
Development of Multicast DNS resolver
Practical v6 net:
Development of multihoming
Development of autoconfig
Development of IPv6 filter


Routing Daemons Development of route6d
Development of pim6dd
Development of pim6sd


Others: Development of boot floppy for installation of FreeBSD and NetBSD over IPv6 net environment
Development of Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) MIB for IPv6 environment


KAME project - Collaborations

The KAME project has collaborated extensively with the following projects that are working on similar lines:

1.TAHI project - The project is aimed at development and free availability of verification technology for the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). Verification technology is critical for large scale IPv6 deployment. The project is tasked with the research and development of conformance and interoperability benchmark tests for IPv6.

2.USAGI (UniverSAl playGround for IPv6) project - The project shares a common preamble with the KAME project. It is aimed at developing the protocol stack for IPv6 and IPsec for the various open source platforms such as BSD Unix and Linux. The project draws its members on a voluntary basis from various organizations. At present, majority of the members are of Japanese origin.

3.WIDE project - The Widely Integrated Distributed Environment (WIDE) project is another Japanese initiative that aims at constructing a distributed computing environment facilitated by modern communication technologies. It lays emphasis on the deployment of IPv6 and IPsec protocols to meet the primary objective of a marriage between primary research and its practical operations in the Information and Communications (ICT) domain.


The core team of researchers in the KAME project comprised of the following:

KAME project - Important links

1.The KAME project - http://www.kame.net/

2.The TAHI project - http://www.tahi.org/

3.The USAGI project - http://www.linux-ipv6.org/

4.The WIDE project - http://www.wide.ad.jp/

5.The University of New Hampshire IPv6 InterOperability laboratory - http://www.iol.unh.edu/services/testing/ipv6/