Encapsulating Security Payload

(E-S-P)

(From RFC 2406) The Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) header is designed to provide a mix of security services in IPv4 and IPv6. ESP may be applied alone, in combination with the IP Authentication Header (AH), or in a nested fashion, e.g., through the use of tunnel mode. The ESP header is inserted after the IP header and before the upper layer protocol header (transport mode) or before an encapsulated IP header (tunnel mode). ESP is used to provide confidentiality, data origin authentication, connectionless integrity, an anti-replay service (a form of partial sequence integrity), and limited traffic flow confidentiality.

More Information

• RFC 2406