#Introduction

D.Network is a blockchain powered networking framework for building decentralized Internet to enable Crypto ID based addressing.

#Decentralized Network

D.Network addresses the fundamental networking issues in decentralized way:

• How to find and connect each other without public IP address, e.g enabling nodes located within separate LANs to connect;
• Programmable network (Layer 3 TCP/IP) on global scale without central authority;
• Encrypting the network traffic end-to-end.
• Innovative PoW and PoN (Proof-of-Networking) mining algorithm to support the token and the networking infrastructure.

#Why D.Network?

• Crypto ID based networking - The nodes locate and connect with each other based on Crypto ID, instead of public IP address.
• Secure connection made simple - point-n-click or scan QR code to make connection by everyone, instead of tedious network and device configuration by engineers.
• Geo-Independent - Ubiquitous and unconstrainted connectivity from anywhere.
• Fully autonomous - The dnet group is locked and controlled by creator's private key.
• Privacy by default - end-to-end encryption of all network traffic.
• Private Overlay Network - Support both Layer 3 and Layer 7 overlay, running any standard TCP/IP based App privately.
• Decentralized SD-WAN - for connecting IoT devices, people and sites.
• Incentive ĐNetDB - The crypto-mining to maintain the integrity of the ĐNetDB.
• App & Device ecosystems - build or find an App or device for private dnet.

#Address Book

Networking is all about locating (or address book) and connecting to nodes. While Internet Protocol (IP) is the only option for connecting on global Internet ("Underlay Network"), there are currently three typical locating or “address book” architectures: Internet, P2P and SD-WAN.

The "Address Book" is the "Yellow Book" for the node on Internet. The “address book” needs to be scalable, manageable and secure. Each of the existing networking architecture apparently has its own advantages, as well as limitations and is suited for different user case: Internet Underlay, P2P and distributed business respectively.

Comparison of Address Book Architecture

Note: * indicates limitation.

Đ.NETWORK combines and extends the following three attributes to create a new Crypto ID based networking architecture

• the openness of the Internet
• programmability of Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN)
• decentralized governance of P2P blockchain and PoW & PoN (Proof-of_Networking) mining

#Identifier & Locator

It is widely known that IP address plays inflexible dual roles: identifier and locator. The network traffic flows through the Internet based on the hierarchy information built-into the IP address ("netmask"). The node as identified by the IP address MUST locate in an pre-assigned and locked position of the netmask tree. If the node moves to a new location, the IP address changes accordingly. Thus, the node could not be reliably identified by its IP address.

In the meantime, the benefit of the netmask tree architecture is to make the address book decentralized and each regional router manages its own routing table and there is no single-point failure. However, the netmask/subnet/IP assignments are centrally governed, e.g. a block of subnets is assigned to a country. There are currently (as of June, 2022) about 920k entries in the netmask tree ("BGP Table Size").

In contrast, the Crypto ID based addressing lifts the locked location restriction and also provides architecture native traffic encryption. Instead of the IP's decentralized netmask tree, the blockchain is used to make the Crypto ID address book management fully decentralized for both assignment and runtime lookup.

Learn more about Crypto ID Based Networking.

#How It Works

In order to create a private overlay network, the on-chain data needs to store complete information for networking:

• Identifier: Connect to Public Key Hash (C2PKH) is the ID for the node;
• Group: the member nodes list is a group of C2PKHs and virtual IP addresses;
• Rendezvous：Directive or pointer to rendezvous cloud backend, referred as "Overlay Cloud (OVC)". One of OVC's main function is to act as rendezvous for member nodes. The OVC nodes usually have public IP address so that all member nodes can connect to it. The rendezvous nodes implement protocols to help the member nodes to find each other and to connect.
• Control Plane: message forwarding amonge nodes.
• Encrypt： The second role of the node's PubKey is used by all other peer nodes to encrypt traffic.

With the publicly and securely accessible group of public keys and virtual IPs, automation is applied to configure the network topology, NAT traversal, encrypted tunnel, routing table, BGP and net device etc. The fully automated configuration makes the networking simple and secure.

Learn more about the core concepts and how it works.

#Prerequisite Skills

• As a DNet App user or DNet admin, no need to understand the blockchain technology, only need to manage self Crypto ID.

• As a DNet App developer, no need to understand the blockchain technology, but need to learn DNetDB SDK.

• As a framework developer and contribitor, you will need indepth understanding of blockchain technology and Bitcoin's architecture, as well as networking technology.

#Learn more

• Core concepts
• On-Chain Data