SNAP: Safe and Nimble Active Packets

SNAP (Safe and Nimble Active Packets) is an active networking system where traditional packet headers are replaced with programs written in a special-purpose programming language. The SNAP language has been designed to be practical, i.e. scoring highly in the following areas:

• safety: SNAP programs cannot compromise node integrity and cannot consume an untoward amount of global or local network resources;
• efficiency: SNAP is designed to permit high performance execution; and
• flexibility: SNAP programs add significant new functionality over traditional passive networking.

Software Download

You can get a user-space version of SNAP which runs over UDP here. It has been tested for RedHat Linux 6.1 and 6.2.

Papers

1. Michael Hicks, Jonathan T. Moore, and Scott Nettles. ``Compiling PLAN to SNAP.'' IWAN'01, September/October 2001. Abstract.
2. Jonathan T. Moore, Jessica Kornblum Moore, and Scott Nettles. ``Scalable Distributed Management with Lightweight Active Packets.'' Technical Report MS-CIS-01-26, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, September 2001. Abstract.
3. Jonathan T. Moore, Michael Hicks, and Scott Nettles. ``Practical Programmable Packets.'' INFOCOM'01, April 2001. Abstract.
4. Jonathan T. Moore. ``Practical Active Packets,'' Ph.D. Dissertation Proposal, University of Pennsylvania, February 2001.
5. Jonathan T. Moore and Scott M. Nettles. ``Towards Practical Programmable Packets.'' Technical Report MS-CIS-00-12, University of Pennsylvania, May 2000. Abstract.
6. Jonathan T. Moore. ``Safe and Efficient Active Packets.'' Technical Report MS-CIS-99-24, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, October 1999. Abstract.

People

• Mike Hicks, Cornell.
• Jon Moore, UPenn.
• Scott Nettles, UTexas-Austin.

Related Links

• SwitchWare, UPenn.

• ANTS, University of Washington.
• M0 messengers, University of Geneva.
• PAN, MIT.
• PLAN, UPenn.
• SafetyNet, University of Sussex at Brighton.