Secure hosts auto-configuration in mobile ad hoc networks

✍ Scribed by Ana Cavalli; Jean-Marie Orset

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 414 KB
• Volume: 3
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1570-8705
• DOI: 10.1016/j.adhoc.2004.08.011

✦ Synopsis

All existing routing protocols of Mobile Ad Hoc networks (MANET) assume that IP addresses of hosts are already configured before they join the network. In traditional schemes, this task is delegated to the dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP [R. Droms, Dynamic host configuration protocol, RFC 2131, March 1997]), which allots an IP address to each requesting node. However, this process can not be applied in the context of MANET because of the lack of infrastructure and the great mobility that characterize them. A manual management of the addresses can be considered as long as the number of nodes remains reasonable. On the other hand, it is not possible any more since the network reaches a certain size. Some works proposed solutions to allow an automatic configuration of the nodes, i.e. without human intervention. Unfortunately these processes, often inspired of the traditional wired networks, are not always well adapted to MANET and appear relatively greedy concerning for example the delay, the address space or the bandwidth. Moreover, they apply only to ideal networks in which all nodes can trust each other. In this manner, they do absolutely not consider the security aspects and are thus not adapted to a real use in potentially hostile environment. In this paper, we propose a node auto-configuration scheme which uses the buddy system technique to allocate the addresses, as well as an algorithm allowing to authenticate the participants inside the network.