Platform and experimentation of secure service location with P2P/client-server over ad hoc networks

  • Authors:
  • Oscar Botero;Hakima Chaouchi

  • Affiliations:
  • Telecom Sud Paris, CNRS SAMOVAR Lab, UMR, Evry, France;Telecom Sud Paris, CNRS SAMOVAR Lab, UMR, Evry, France

  • Venue:
  • WD'09 Proceedings of the 2nd IFIP conference on Wireless days
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Ad hoc networking is considered as an inexpensive solution for easy and fast wireless network coverage. However, for real service deployment, security and availability in such networks are still under research even though some experimentation has shown its viability. Additionally, peer-to-peer (P2P) networking has emerged as a key technology to enable resource sharing among users. As a result, the load charge on servers can be reduced by using P2P, but this approach presents a drawback related to the services availability; when a peer is not connected, its resources are not reachable. Alternatively, Client-Server architecture provides a centralized approach; but a high demand on client requests might deteriorate service response and capacity. In the case of ad hoc networks, offering services securely is even more challenging since all nodes are anonymous until being authenticated. In this paper, we propose to offer a secure location of services in an ad hoc environment. We focused on the development of a proxy-based solution to combine a P2P-client/server network overlay in order to provide securely the location information of network services (e.g. AAA service, Kerberos) and to set a platform that can include application services (e.g. multimedia content service). More precisely, we deployed a network overlay P2P platform using JXTA; a set of peer to peer protocols, and we developed simple peer nodes and a proxy server for providing and ensuring service access control. Other security services can also be deployed such as Kerberos, PKI, among others. In our platform, the JXTA was combined; through the proxy server, with a distributed Radius AAA server to perform authentication tasks prior to discovering the location of the required services in the ad hoc network. We added encryption and message authentication code mechanisms to provide a complete secured solution. GPS Bluetooth devices were used to obtain nodes location but other location systems are also possible. Finally, a detailed description of the system architecture and platform is provided describing all the modular components as well as numerical results derived from a simple test bed.