A secure dynamic IP configuration scheme for mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

Secure dynamic IP addressing is a prime requirement for unicast communication between authorized hosts in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Recently, several approaches have been proposed for dynamic addressing scheme. However, most of the approaches rely on broadcasting for address solicitation and/or duplicate address detection. As a result, several types of security threats in dynamic IP configuration can be observed. In this paper, we present an ID based dynamic IP configuration scheme that can securely allocate IP addresses to the authorized hosts for a mobile ad hoc network without broadcasting over the entire network. Each host in the MANET can generate an unique IP address from its own IP address for a new host. The proposed scheme provides authentication for address configuration without the help of a trusted third party while taking care of the security-threats associated with dynamic IP configuration. Performance analysis shows that even with added security mechanisms our proposed addressing scheme has fairly good addressing latency and control overhead compared to the similar existing schemes. Moreover, the proposed scheme is able to solve the problem of network partitions and mergers along with the arrival and departure of a host efficiently and securely.