Blockchain-Based Content Name Search Mechanism in NDN

Named Data Networking (NDN) is one of the strong competitors of the next generation network architecture, meeting the needs of today’s users for the network. One problem with NDN is that the content requester does not know if there is any content in the network when it sends out the interest package, and it does not know where the target is. This problem is currently solved by the domain name resolution service, but the existing solution does not apply to the NDN architecture. Because the content in the NDN is identified by a human-readable name, the NDN architecture does not require an additional name resolution system. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based Content Name Search Mechanism (BCNSM) by binding the content producer and the human-readable content name as the unique identifier of the content, and then using the blockchain as a trusted organization to store content information, and dynamically stores the information through the smart contract, thereby mapping the content name and the storage location to each other. BCNSM provides users with content name search services and name to the content provider resolution services. Then the model was built for the BCNSM using the colored petri net, and the model process is verified by the model simulation to meet the expectations, and the state space analysis proves that the BCNSM has no deadlock. Finally, a prototype of the smart contract was implemented in Ethereum’s testnet, and the storage and Gas overhead of content name registration and content cache address update were tested.