IPCOMP(4) BSD Programmer's Manual IPCOMP(4)NAME
IPComp - IP Payload Compression Protocol
NOTE
IPComp is enabled with the following sysctl(3) variable in
/etc/sysctl.conf:
net.inet.ipcomp.enable
DESCRIPTION
IPComp is a protocol used to reduce the size of IP datagrams. It can be
used to enhance the communication performance between a pair of
hosts/gateways, especially on slow links, by compressing the datagrams,
provided the communicating entities have enough computation power.
This protocol is especially useful when encryption or authentication is
applied to IP datagrams using the IPsec protocol (see ipsec(4) for more
information about IPsec). Encrypting information is increasing its entro-
py to a point where compression to a lower layer becomes completely use-
less (e.g., the PPP Compression Control Protocol). IPcomp is applied at
the network layer before other encryption operations are applied (except
encryption protocols applied at a higher layer such as ssh(1) or ssl(8)).
Just like for the other IPsec protocols, IPComp needs some parameters for
each connection, specifying how the compression should be done between
the entities. The parameters are collected in a structure called an IP-
Comp Association or IPCA. The parameters stored in an IPCA are the desti-
nation address and the Compression Parameter Index (CPI). An IPCA is the
pendant of the SA (Security Association) for IPsec.
Currently, IPCA can be created using the ipsecadm(8) tool. Using
ipsecadm(8) it is also possible to create IPComp flows and SA/IPCA bun-
dles. Such a bundle is used to create a combination of IPsec and IPComp
flows (thus enabling compression in an IPsec protocol).
The compression is done on the data following the IP header and an IPComp
header is inserted between the compressed data and the IP header. In the
case of IPv6, there are extension headers which cannot be compressed
since they are modified by the router along the way to the destination.
These extension headers are hop-by-hop, routing, and fragmentation.
When doing compression, it is possible that the uncompressed data is
smaller in size than the compressed data. To avoid this behaviour, a non
expansion policy is used in IPComp. If the data payload is smaller than a
given threshold, it will not be compressed. No IPComp header will be in-
serted.
IPComp uses the same policy framework as IPsec. However unlike IPsec,
only one policy is available for IPComp:
IPSEC_LEVEL_USE Use IPComp for sending packets but still accept packets
which are not compressed.
DIAGNOSTICSnetstat(1) can be used to obtain some statistics about IPComp usage, us-
ing the -p flag. Just like for IPsec, using the -r flag, netstat(1)
displays information about IPComp flows.
SEE ALSOenc(4), inet(4), ip(4), ipsec(4), netintro(4), ipsecadm(8)HISTORY
The IPComp protocol first appeared in OpenBSD 3.0.
AUTHORS
Support for the IPComp protocol was written by Jean-Jacques Bernard-
Gundol <jj@wabbitt.org>.
MirOS BSD #10-current June 27, 2001 1
