RFC 2393 (rfc2393) - Page 1 of 10

IP Payload Compression Protocol (IPComp)

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Network Working Group                                         A. Shacham
Request for Comments: 2393                                         Cisco
Category: Standards Track                                     R. Monsour
                                                                   Hi/fn
                                                              R. Pereira
                                                                TimeStep
                                                               M. Thomas
                                                      AltaVista Internet
                                                           December 1998


                IP Payload Compression Protocol (IPComp)

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document describes a protocol intended to provide lossless
   compression for Internet Protocol datagrams in an Internet
   environment.

1. Introduction

   IP payload compression is a protocol to reduce the size of IP
   datagrams.  This protocol will increase the overall communication
   performance between a pair of communicating hosts/gateways ("nodes")
   by compressing the datagrams, provided the nodes have sufficient
   computation power, through either CPU capacity or a compression
   coprocessor, and the communication is over slow or congested links.

   IP payload compression is especially useful when encryption is
   applied to IP datagrams.  Encrypting the IP datagram causes the data
   to be random in nature, rendering compression at lower protocol
   layers (e.g., PPP Compression Control Protocol [RFC-1962])
   ineffective.  If both compression and encryption are required,
   compression MUST be applied before encryption.





Shacham, et. al.            Standards Track
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