Language-Based Approach for Improving the Robustness of Network Application Protocol Implementations

The secure and robust functioning of a network relies on the defect-free implementation of network applications. As network protocols have become increasingly complex, however, hand-writing network message processing code has become increasingly error-prone. In this talk, we present an easy-to-use declarative domain-specific language, Zebu, for describing protocol message formats and related processing constraints. From a Zebu specification, a compiler automatically generates a correct, defect-free and efficient protocol handling layer to be used by an application to process network messages.