Abstract

This paper aims to reduce the transfer restrictions of networks at the transport layer under prohibition-in-principle rules, and to introduce a communication system that virtualizes a programmable network function. The second aim facilitates the realization of the first. Specifically, we target Intranets that restrict transport-layer communications using a firewall. When such an organization’s networks serve multiple departments, external communication to a department is restricted to the available transport number under the rule of the prohibition-in-principle. Our proposed transport proxy system architecture represents the transfer of network applications via well-known protocols such as HTTP (80), using the urgent pointer in the transmission control protocol header. Our architecture improves the flexibility and scalability of the network without requiring complex encapsulation. Finally, the framework is demonstrated through an experimental implementation of the system. Moreover, adding the transport tunneling system offered flexibility while barely affecting the download time of the files.