Implementation and evaluation of the Shim6 protocol in the Linux kernel

In the changing landscape of the todays Internet, several solutions are under investigation to allow efficient, flexible and scalable multihoming. One of the proposals is shim6, a host-based multihoming solution based on the use of multiple IPv6 addresses on each host. In this work, we first describe the main features of this protocol, then we explain our implementation of shim6, along with the associated security mechanisms in the Linux kernel and, finally, we evaluate its performance. In particular, we analyse the performance impact of the security mechanisms used by shim6 and the impact of shim6 on the performance of end-host systems, especially heavily loaded servers. We conclude by discussing the remaining open issues for a widespread deployment of host-based multihoming techniques such as shim6.