Eliminating undetected interest looping in content-centric networks

It has been shown that Interest loops can go undetected in NDN (named data networking) and CCNx (content-centric networking) when Interests are aggregated. To solve this problem, we introduce CCN-ELF, a simple variation of the way in which CCNx and NDN work based on a new type of forwarding information base (FIB) that stores distance information about name prefixes for neighbors of a content router that can serve as next hops, rather than just a ranked list of those next hops. CCN-ELF uses a loop-free forwarding algorithm based on the information available in the new FIBs that allows Interests to be forwarded and aggregated, without the risk of undetected Interest loops and without requiring any changes to the packet formats used in NDN and CCNx.