System and method for eliminating undetected interest looping in information-centric networks

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that when executed by a computing device cause the computing device to perform a method for correctly processing interests in an information-centric network (ICN), the method comprising:

• receiving, by a first node in the ICN, an interest for a piece of content from a second node, wherein the interest specifies a name of the content piece;
• determining, based on forwarding information, whether a forwarding condition is satisfied;
• determining, based on information associated with pending interests stored on the first node, whether an interest aggregation condition is satisfied, wherein the interest aggregation condition is satisfied when a distance from the first node to a destination node is less than a distance form the second node to the destination node, and wherein the information associated with pending interests comprises a number of allowed retransmissions and a remaining lifetime of the interest for a piece of content;
• in response to the forwarding condition being satisfied, forwarding the interest;
• in response to the interest aggregation condition being satisfied, aggregating the interest, wherein aggregating the interest comprises not forwarding the interest;
• and
• in response to neither the forwarding condition nor the interest aggregation condition being satisfied, dropping the interest and sending to the second node a control message indicating that the interest is traversing a loop.

A computer system for correctly processing interests in an information-centric network (ICN), the system comprising:

• a memory for storing instructions associated with an interest-receiving module, an interest-processing module, a forwarding module, an interest aggregation module, and a control-message generation module;
• a processor for executing the instructions, wherein executing the instructions causes the system to perform operations, comprising:
• the interest-receiving module is configured to receive, by a first node in the ICN, an interest for a piece of content from a second node, wherein the interest specifies a name of the content piece;
• the interest-processing module is configured to determine, based on forwarding information, whether a forwarding condition is satisfied, wherein the interest-processing module is further configured to determine, based on information associated with pending interests stored on the first node, whether an interest aggregation condition is satisfied, wherein the interest aggregation condition is satisfied when a distance from the first node to a destination node is less than a distance from the second node to the destination node, wherein the interest-processing module is further configured to drop the interest when neither the forwarding condition nor the interest aggregation condition is satisfied, and wherein the information associated with pending interests comprises a number of allowed retransmissions and a remaining lifetime of the interest for a piece of content;
• the forwarding module is configured to forward the interest in response to the forwarding condition being satisfied;
• the interest aggregation module is configured to aggregate the interest in response to the interest aggregation condition being satisfied, wherein aggregating the interest comprises not forwarding the interest;
• and
• the control-message generation module is configured, in response to neither the forwarding condition nor the interest aggregation condition being satisfied, to generate a control message indicating that the interest is traversing a loop and to send the control message to the second node.