CN101188505B - content type recognition method and device - Google Patents

Abstract

The embodiment of the present invention discloses a method for content type identification, comprising the steps of: receiving a data message from a communication user, and obtaining the content type of the data message by analyzing the data message; When the content type of the document fails, it will be processed according to the configured failure processing policy, and the content type will be identified according to the result of the failure processing. By applying the method disclosed in the embodiment of the present invention, the problem of failure in identifying message type and content can be solved, paving the way for content charging. In particular, it can solve the problem of content type and content billing failure due to wrong URL setting or URL is a relative path. The embodiments of the present invention are simple to implement, effective and feasible, and can solve errors and failures of content-based billing for data services, ensure the interests of operators and enhance users' satisfaction with using data services.

Description

Method and device for content type identification

technical field

The present invention relates to the communication field, in particular to a method and device for content type identification.

Background technique

In the communication field, there are mainly two charging methods for operators: charging by time and charging by traffic. For example, for voice services, billing is generally performed according to the duration of use of the voice services. Billing by traffic is billed according to the data bit stream actually generated when the user conducts a certain communication service. In non-speech services, the traffic used by different communication services varies greatly. For example, the traffic of SMS service and video TV service are not in the same order of magnitude, and the network resources occupied by the two services are also different. Operators have different operating costs for a single user due to different user services. Billing by time cannot make a better distinction in this regard: billing by traffic can solve this problem, but billing by traffic also has certain limitations. Limitations: For example, real-time services such as video telephony services and non-real-time services such as music download services are unreasonable if they are all charged according to traffic. Because the network resources occupied by different services are different, that is, the cost invested by operators for users using different services is different, but if the billing methods are the same, it is obviously against the economic law. Therefore, billing by traffic alone is the same as billing by time, which cannot well reflect the value of content in communication services.

With the development of data services, various types of data service applications are becoming more and more abundant. However, due to its shortcomings, the charging method based on traffic or duration cannot meet the charging needs of operators. Therefore, the content-based charging method has been introduced. Content-based charging means that the operator filters and analyzes the data packets, then identifies and distinguishes the content types and attributes of the data packets, and transmits the relevant information to the billing system for billing. Different from billing based on duration or traffic, content billing can be billed based on the content type of value-added services, so that flexible and reasonable billing can be made to users based on the content information of communication services.

There are usually two ways to implement content billing. One is to enhance the function of the GPRS gateway support node GGSN (Gateway GPRS Support Node) to support content billing. Set up an independent billing gateway to support content billing. The content billing implemented by GGSN is generally based on the IP five-tuple (source IP address, source port number, destination IP address, destination port number and protocol number) and/or Universal Resource Locator URL (Universal Resource Locator) to identify the user's communication services content, and perform content billing based on the recognition result. Wherein, when the URL is a relative path, the URL of the absolute path is obtained by parsing the Host field in the message and splicing with the URL for matching, and finally the content type of the user communication service is obtained.

In practical applications, it often happens that the content identification cannot be performed, which leads to the inability to realize the content-based charging or charging errors. For example, when a user sends a MMS, if the URL of the MMS center is set incorrectly, when the MMS data arrives at the GGSN, the GGSN will not be able to identify the current service as a MMS service, and thus will not be able to charge for the current MMS service according to the content, which may cause Mistakenly perform billing according to the billing method of general business traffic. In addition, when a user accesses a WAP service, the destination IP address in the GET/POST message is the IP address of the WAP gateway, and the actual visited destination is identified by the URL in the GET/POST message, and the WAP gateway uses the GET The URL in the /POST message sends the WAP data to the actual destination. However, when the mobile phone accesses the WAP service and carries the URL field of the relative path, it will fail to identify the content type and charge for the content because the absolute path cannot be obtained.

Contents of the invention

The embodiment of the invention discloses a content type identification method and device, which can solve the problem of not being able to identify the content type due to wrong addresses. In particular, it can solve the problem that the content type identification fails due to the absolute path obtained according to the relative path of the URL or the setting error of the URL address. On the basis of this, the problem of incorrect charging by content or failure to perform content charging can be solved.

The embodiment of the present invention discloses a method for content type identification, which includes the steps of: receiving a data message from a communication user, and obtaining the content type of the data message by analyzing the data message; When the content type of the document fails, it will be processed according to the configured failure processing policy, and the content type will be identified according to the result of the failure processing. When the URL is a relative path, the absolute path is spliced according to the X-Online-Host field in the message and the URL to identify the content type; or when the URL is set incorrectly, the content is identified according to the Content-Type content in the message type identification.

The invention also discloses a device for content type identification, which includes a receiving unit for receiving user data packets; a configuration unit, the configuration unit includes an identification rule unit for storing content type identification rules; an identification unit for Identify the content type according to the rules saved by the configuration unit; wherein, the configuration unit also includes a failure processing unit for saving the failure processing strategy; when the identification unit cannot identify the content type of the message according to the rules saved by the identification rule unit, then Identify the content type according to the failure handling policy of the failure handling unit. The failure processing unit includes a first subunit and/or a second subunit; the first subunit is used to instruct the identification unit to splice out an absolute path according to the URL information in the message and the X-Online-Host field; the The second subunit is used to instruct the identification unit to identify the content type of the message according to the Content-Type content of the message.

Applying the solutions of the embodiments of the present invention can solve the problem of failure to identify message type and content, especially the problem of being unable to identify the type of business content due to incorrect address information such as URL information. So as to pave the way for the effective implementation of content billing. In particular, it can solve the problem of content type and content billing failure due to wrong URL setting or URL is a relative path. The embodiments of the present invention are simple to implement, effective and feasible, and can solve the errors and failures of content-based billing of data services, ensure the interests of operators and enhance users' satisfaction with using data services.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is the method flowchart of embodiment one of the present invention;

Fig. 2 is the method flowchart of the second embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 3 is the method flowchart of the third embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 4 is a device structure diagram of Embodiment 4 of the present invention.

Detailed ways

The present invention will be described in detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments.

As shown in Fig. 1, it is the method flow chart of the first embodiment of the present invention, now the result accompanying drawing is introduced in detail:

101. Configure content identification rules, and add a strategy for handling content identification failures; for example, establish a correspondence between the "Content-Type" field and the content type, or add X-Online-Host field configuration information, etc.; generally, the content identification Rules and failure handling policies can be configured on the GGSN or the charging gateway.

102. When receiving a data message from a communication user such as a GET or POST message, analyze the cells of the received data message and match it with the configured content identification rules to identify the communication service used by the user Content type; when the content identification fails, it will be processed according to the configured content identification processing policy. For example, the content type of the communication service data can be determined through the "Content-Type" field, or failure processing can be performed through the X-Online-Host information.

103. According to the result of the failure processing, match the identified content type with the charging rule to obtain the corresponding content charging rule, and obtain charging information from the charging rule, and use the charging information for the user according to the charging information. Billing for communication services.

Fig. 2 shows the flowchart of the second implementation of the present invention, now in conjunction with the accompanying drawings the detailed steps are introduced:

Configure content identification rules on the billing gateway or GGSN, and add a content failure processing strategy: establish the corresponding relationship between the corresponding "Content-Type" information and the content type.

After the billing gateway or GGSN receives the data message of the communication user, analyze the message according to the content identification rules to identify its content type; when the content type cannot be identified according to the content identification rules, then proceed according to the failure processing strategy deal with. Use the "Content-Type" information to identify, for example, when the Content-Type in the message is application/vnd.wap.mms-message, it means that it is a MMS service, and then the content can be billed according to the rate of the MMS service . Specifically, the following three situations may be included: when the content type can be matched according to the URL in the message, the URL in the message is directly used for identification; when the corresponding type of content cannot be identified according to the URL in the message, then According to the failure processing policy, the content type is identified according to the Content-Type information; when the content type matching fails based on the URL information in the message and the content-type information is not carried in the message, the message is allowed to pass according to the configured policy or Choose to discard packets.

After identifying the data message of the user's communication service, by analyzing the message for content identification, the content type can be matched with the charging rule to obtain the corresponding charging rule, and the billing rule can be calculated according to the billing rule. Subsequent processing of content charging based on fee information. The content identification rules mentioned in the above process may include but not limited to IP quintuple information (source IP address, source port number, destination IP address, destination port number and protocol number), URL information and "Content-Type" information wait. The billing rules include, but are not limited to: billing methods (such as billing by traffic or duration), time thresholds (describe a bill for a certain time), traffic thresholds (describe a bill for a certain amount of traffic) , service ID, and billing group ID. The IP quintuple information, URL information, and Content-Type information are used to identify the service to which the data message belongs; the charging method is used to specify whether the corresponding service is charged by traffic or by duration; the time threshold is used to specify How long does the corresponding business interval generate an intermediate bill; the traffic threshold is used to specify the corresponding service when the traffic reaches a certain amount to generate an intermediate bill; the service ID is filled in the bill to identify the corresponding business, so that The billing center deducts fees according to the corresponding business; the billing group ID is used to specify a rate group, and multiple services can belong to the same billing group if they have the same rate during billing, that is, their billing group IDs are the same. Concrete implementation details in an example of the present invention are as follows:

The following table shows the set content identification rules:

rule ID source IP address source port number Destination IP address Destination port number agreement number URL Content-Type 1 any any any 80 tcp any any 2 any any any any any any application/vnd.wap.mms-message

The following table shows the billing rules set:

Rule ID Content Identification Rule ID billing method time threshold Traffic Threshold Business ID Billing

group ID 1 1 Billing by duration 10 seconds NA NA browsing class 2 2 Pay by traffic NA 100kByte MMS NA

When a user conducts WAP services, the URL in the message (such as a GET message) is a relative address, the HOST field is filled with the address of the WAP gateway, and the X-Online-Host field is filled with the actual access server information. By identifying the X-Online The -Host field can determine the destination host that the user actually accesses the service. By concatenating the X-Online-Host field with the URL of the relative path, you can get the target business information actually accessed by the user, so as to correctly implement content billing. Fig. 3 shows the method flowchart of the third embodiment of the present invention, now in conjunction with the accompanying drawings the method steps are introduced in detail:

Configure content identification rules on the GGSN or billing gateway, and add content failure handling policies: Add X-Online-Host field configuration information in the content identification rules.

When the GGSN or the billing gateway obtains the GET/POST data service message when the communication user conducts business, it analyzes the message and matches with the configured content identification rules to identify the content type of the message. If the content type of the message cannot be identified by the identification rules, then the failure processing is carried out according to the failure handling strategy: when the URL is a relative path, use the X-Online-Host field to splice with the relative URL to obtain the absolute path. For example, the absolute URL is in the form of "http://a.b.c/content", where http://a.b.c is the domain name of the host to explain its IP address, or it can be in the form of "http://a.b.c.d", where The a.b.c.d is the IP address, and the "content" is the path of the content to be accessed in the host. If only the path in the host is included, it is a relative path. The absolute path can be obtained by concatenating the relative address of the URL with the X-Online-Host field.

Specifically, it includes the following processing procedures:

When the URL in the message is an absolute path, directly use the URL in the message to identify the content type;

When the URL in the message is a relative address and carries the X-Online-Host field, use the X-Online-Host field in the message to splice the URL with the URL to obtain an absolute path to identify the content type of the message;

When the URL of the message is a relative path and does not carry the X-Online-Host field, use the Host field in the message and the URL to splicing to perform content identification.

After identifying the data message of the user's communication service, by analyzing the message for content identification, the content type can be matched with the charging rule to obtain the corresponding charging rule, and the billing rule can be calculated according to the billing rule. Subsequent processing of content charging based on fee information. Wherein the content identification rules include but are not limited to: IP quintuple information (source IP address, source port number, destination IP address, destination port number and protocol number), URL, X-Online-Host information, etc.; The charging information of the charging rule includes but is not limited to the charging method (according to traffic or charging by duration), time threshold (time interval for generating a bill), traffic threshold (according to the amount of traffic to generate a bill) ), business ID and billing ID, etc. Described IP quintuple information, URL information, X-Online-Host information are used to identify the service to which the data message belongs; The charging method is used to specify whether the corresponding service is charged by traffic or by duration; the time threshold is used How long does it take to specify the corresponding business interval to generate an intermediate bill; the traffic threshold is used to specify the corresponding business when the traffic reaches a certain amount to generate an intermediate bill; the service ID is filled in the bill to identify the corresponding business , so that the billing center can deduct charges according to the corresponding services; the billing group ID is used to specify a rate group, and multiple services can belong to the same billing group if they have the same rate during billing, that is, their billing groups The fee group ID is the same. An embodiment is now used to introduce the content identification rules and charging rules in detail:

Content-aware rules:

rule ID source IP address source port number Destination IP address destination port number agreement number URL X-Online-Host 1 any any any 80 Tcp any 211.136.2.238:8080\R\N 2 any any any any any any 10.0.0.172:80\R\N

Billing rules:

rule ID Content Identification Rule ID billing method time threshold flow threshold Business ID Billing group ID 1 1 Billing by duration 10 seconds NA NA browsing class 2 2 Pay by traffic NA 100kByte MMS NA

The invention also discloses a device for processing content charging failure. The device can be built into the GGSN and/or gateway devices such as billing gateways, or it can be a physical entity with independent functions, which interacts with gateway devices such as GGSN or billing gateways through external interfaces to realize content billing Failed handling. include:

Receiving unit: used to receive user data packets, such as GET/POST packets.

Configuration unit: includes a recognition rule unit for storing content type identification rules, such as rules for content type identification based on IP quintuple information; also includes a failure policy unit for storing failure processing policies. When the content type of the message cannot be identified according to the identification rule unit, the content type of the message can be further identified according to the failure processing strategy. More specifically, the failure handling strategy unit stores the processing strategy of URL being a relative path and the processing strategy of URL setting error. The failure processing unit includes a first subunit and/or a second subunit; the first subunit is used to instruct the identification unit to splice out an absolute path according to the URL information in the message and the X-Online-Host field; the The second subunit is used to instruct the identification unit to identify the content type of the message according to the Content-Type content of the message.

Identification unit: used to identify the content type of the user message according to the identification rules configured by the configuration unit. When the content type of the user message cannot be identified, a failure processing strategy is obtained from the configuration unit, and the content type is identified according to the failure processing strategy. For example, when the URL is a relative path, the absolute path can be concatenated according to the information of X-Online-Host; or the content type can be identified according to the "Content-Type" information.

Billing unit: After the identification unit identifies the content type of the message, the billing unit matches the corresponding charging rule according to the content type of the message, and performs content charging according to the charging information in the matching charging rule processing; or report to the charging gateway for charging-related processing.

By applying the method disclosed in the embodiment of the present invention, the problem of failure in identifying message type and content can be solved, paving the way for content charging. In particular, it can solve the problem of content type and content billing failure due to wrong URL setting or URL is a relative path. The embodiments of the present invention are simple to implement, effective and feasible, and can solve the errors and failures of content-based billing of data services, ensure the interests of operators and enhance users' satisfaction with using data services.

The preferred embodiment has been used above to describe the present invention, but the above preferred embodiment is only used to help understand the core idea of the present invention and its implementation, so those of ordinary skill in the art will not depart from the thinking and scope of the present invention. Below, there may be some changes in the specific implementation and details. These changes should be understood as carrying out the present invention.

Claims (5)

1. A method for content type identification, comprising the steps of: receiving a data message from a communication user, and obtaining the content type of the data message by analyzing the data message; When the acquisition of the content type of the message fails, process it according to a pre-configured failure processing strategy, and re-identify the content type according to the result of the failure processing, The failure handling strategy is: when the Universal Resource Locator URL is a relative path, an absolute path is spliced according to the X-Online-Host field in the message and the URL, so as to identify the content type; or, when the URL is set incorrectly , identify the content type according to the content of the Content-Type in the packet. 2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the steps of: The identified content type is matched with content charging rules to obtain charging information, and content charging is performed according to the charging information. 3. A device for content type identification, comprising a receiving unit for receiving user data packets; a configuration unit, the configuration unit including a recognition rule unit for storing the rules for content type identification; a recognition unit for according to the configuration unit The saved rules identify the content type; it is characterized in that the configuration unit also includes a failure processing unit that saves a failure processing strategy, and the failure processing strategy is used to instruct the identification unit to perform failure processing, and identify the message according to the failure strategy The content type of the content type; the identification unit is used to identify the content type of the message according to the rules saved by the identification rule unit, and if it fails, the identification of the content type is carried out according to the failure processing strategy of the failure processing unit; wherein, the failure processing unit includes the first A subunit and/or a second subunit; the first subunit is used to instruct the identification unit to splice out an absolute path according to the URL information in the message and the X-Online-Host field, so as to identify the content of the message type; the second subunit is used to instruct the identification unit to identify the content type of the message according to the Content-Type of the message. 4. The device according to claim 3, characterized in that the device further comprises a billing unit, configured to perform content billing processing after the content type is identified; or to report the identified content type to the accounting unit. fee gateway for processing. 5. The device according to claim 3, wherein the device is an independent physical entity; or Integrated in the charging gateway and/or GPRS gateway support node GGSN.

Images