A middlebox is a computer networking device that transforms, inspects, filters, and manipulates traffic for purposes other than packet forwarding. Examples of middleboxes include firewalls, network address translators (NATs), load balancers, and deep packet inspection (DPI) devices.
The term middlebox was coined in 1999 by UCLA computer science professor Lixia Zhang.
1 2 3 Brian Carpenter (2002). "Middleboxes: Taxonomy and Issues". Ietf Datatracker. doi:10.17487/RFC3234. RFC 3234.
1 2 Magalhaes, Ricky. "The Difference Between Application and Session Layer Firewalls". Retrieved 17 July 2012.
↑ Zhaoguang Wang, Zhiyun Qian, Qiang Xu, Z. Morley Mao, Ming Zhang (August 2011). "An Untold Story of Middleboxes in Cellular Networks" (PDF). ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review. 41 (4). Association for Computing Machinery: 374–385. doi:10.1145/2043164.2018479.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ Walfish; et al. (2004). "Middleboxes no longer considered harmful" (PDF). OSDI. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
↑ "Port Control Protocol Working Group". Retrieved 17 July 2012.
↑ Honda; et al. (2011). "Is it still possible to extend TCP?" (PDF). Internet Measurement Conference.
↑ Corbet, Jonathan (January 29, 2018). "QUIC as a solution to protocol ossification". lwn.net. Retrieved 2020-03-14.