A testbed based performance evaluation of smart grid wireless neighborhood area networks routing protocols

Smart Grid networks have a data communication network associated with the electrical energy distribution infrastructure. This network connects all the sub- scribers’ homes with the data control centers of the supplying companies, which in turn have access to the global Internet network. They are in charge of transporting the needed information between the elements that comprise the electricity network and the control centers. A part of these networks is the so-called Neighborhood Area Networks (NANs), which transports the data from the subscriber’s home to some data concentrators. This article presents a comparison of the performance of different routing protocols that can be used in this part of the data network, when a wireless technology is selected. For this comparison, a hardware testbed has been implemented, with a simple initial configuration, which allows the comparison of the OLSR v1, OLSR v2 and HWMP protocols. The numerical results are presented in terms of network throughput, protocol overhead, number of retransmissions, net- work transit and packet transfer times.This work was supported by the Spanish Research Council under project MAGOS (TEC2017-84197-C4-3-R), and Juan Pablo Astudillo León is the recipient of a full scholarship from the Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (SENESCYT), Ecuador.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Performance Evaluation of using a Dynamic Shortest Path Algorithm in OLSRv2

MANET routing protocols are designed to scale up to thousands of routers with frequent changes of the topology. In preference, MANET routing protocols should also support constrained low-power devices. One of the bottlenecks of scalability in link-state routing protocols is the performance of the shortest path algorithm (e.g. Dijkstra). In this document, we investigate the in-node performance of OLSRv2 and, in particular, study the benefits of using a dynamic shortest path (DSP) algorithm for this routing protocol. A DSP algorithm is an algorithm that adds or removes edges in the routing tree incrementally and calculates shortest paths, also incrementally. The performance in OLSRv2 with classic Dijkstra vs. DSP is evaluated, by comparing the CPU time for calculating paths in a large emulated network. Additionally, it is demonstrated that frequent topology changes due to mobility in MANETs lead to frequent routing table recalculations with only few routes updated each time. This property of MANETs makes the use of a DSP in OLSRv2 appropriate

Digital Signatures for Admittance Control in the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol version 2

Public community Mobile Ad Hoc NETworks (MANETs), such as the ``Funkfeuer'' or ``Freifunk'' networks, scale up to several hundreds of routers, connecting users with each other, and with the Internet. As MANETs are typically operated over wireless channels (e.g. WiFi), access to these networks is granted to anyone in the radio range of another router in the MANET, and running the same MANET routing protocol. In order to protect the stability of the networks from malicious intruders, it is important to ensure that only trusted peers are admitted to participate in the control message exchange, and to provide means for logically ``disconnecting'' a non-trustworthy peer. This memorandum presents the concept of admittance control for the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol version 2 (OLSRv2), and suggests a security extension based on digital signatures. Due to the flexible message format of OLSRv2, this extension keeps compatibility with the core OLSRv2 specification. Several standard digital signature algorithms (RSA, DSA, ECDSA), as well as HMAC, are compared in terms of message overhead and CPU time for generating and processing signatures

Vulnerability Analysis of the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol version 2 (OLSRv2)

Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) are leaving the confines of research laboratories, to find place in real-world deployments. Outside specialized domains (military, vehicular, etc.), city-wide community-networks are emerging, connecting regular Internet users with each other, and with the Internet, via MANETs. Growing to encompass more than a handful of ``trusted participants'', the question of preserving the MANET network connectivity, even when faced with careless or malicious participants, arises, and must be addressed. A first step towards protecting a MANET is to analyze the vulnerabilities of the routing protocol, managing the connectivity. By understanding how the algorithms of the routing protocol operate, and how these can be exploited by those with ill intent, countermeasures can be developed, readying MANETs for wider deployment and use. This paper takes an abstract look at the algorithms that constitute the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol version 2 (OLSRv2), and identifies for each protocol element the possible vulnerabilities and attacks -- in a certain way, provides a ``cookbook'' for how to best attack an operational OLSRv2 network, or for how to proceed with developing protective countermeasures against these attacks

Towards a network management solution for vehicular delay-tolerant networks

Vehicular networks appeared as a new communication solution where vehicles act as a communication infrastructure, providing data communications through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) or vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications. Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks (VDTNs) are a new disruptive network architecture assuming delay tolerant networking paradigm where there are no end-to-end connectivity. In this case the incial node transmits the data to a closed node, the data will be carried by vehicles, hop to hop until the destination. This dissertation focuses on a proposal of a network management solution, based standard protocol Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to VDTN networks. The developed solution allows control a VDTN netowork through a Network Management System (NMS) with the objective to detect and, if it’s possible, anticipate, possible errors on network. The research methodology used was the prototyping. So, it was built a network management module to the laboratorial prototype, called VDTN@Lab. The system built include a MIB (Management Information Base) placed in all vehicular network nodes. The solution was built, demonstrated, validated and evaluated their performance, being ready for use.As redes veiculares foram desenhadas para permitir que os veículos possam transportar dados criando assim um novo tipo de redes, caracterizando-se por dois tipos de comunicação: comunicações veículo-para-veículo (V2V) ou comunicações veículo-parainfra-estrutura (V2I). Redes veiculares intermitentes (do Inglês Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks - VDTNs) surgiram como uma nova arquitectura de rede de dados onde os veículos são utilizados como infra-estruturas de comunicação. As VDTNs caracterizam-se por serem redes veiculares baseadas no paradigma de comunicações intermitentes. Nas redes VDTN não existe uma ligação permanente extremo a extremo entre o emissor e o receptor. Neste caso, o nó inicial transmite os dados para um nó que esteja junto dele e assim sucessivamente, os dados vão sendo transportados pelos veículos, salto a salto até ao destinatário final. Esta dissertação centra-se na proposta de uma solução de gestão de rede, baseada no protocolo estandardizado Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) para redes VDTN. A solução construída permite controlar uma rede VDTN através de um sistema de gestão de rede (do Inglês Network Management System - NMS) com o objectivo de detectar e, se possível antecipar, possíveis erros na rede. A metodologia de investigação utilizada foi a prototipagem. Assim, foi construído um módulo de gestão de redes para o protótipo laboratorial, chamado VDTN@Lab. O sistema construído inclui uma MIB (Management Information Base) que é colocada em todos os nós de uma rede veicular, tanto fixos como móveis. A solução foi construída, demonstrada, validade e avaliado o seu desempenho, estando assim pronta para ser utilizada

Multipath optimized link state routing for mobile ad hoc networks

International audienceMultipath routing protocols for Mobile Ad hoc NETwork (MANET) address the problem of scalability, security (confidentiality and integrity), lifetime of networks, instability of wireless transmissions, and their adaptation to applications. Our protocol, called MP-OLSR (MultiPath OLSR), is a multipath routing protocol based on OLSR. The Multipath Dijkstra Algorithm is proposed to obtain multiple paths. The algorithm gains great flexibility and extensibility by employing different link metrics and cost functions. In addition, route recovery and loop detection are implemented in MP-OLSR in order to improve quality of service regarding OLSR. The backward compatibility with OLSR based on IP source routing is also studied. Simulation based on Qualnet simulator is performed in different scenarios. A testbed is also set up to validate the protocol in real world. The results reveal that MP-OLSR is suitable for mobile, large and dense networks with large traffic, and could satisfy critical multimedia applications with high on time constraints

Performance Evaluation of using a Dynamic Shortest Path Algorithm in OLSRv2

MANET routing protocols are designed to scale up to thousands of routers with frequent changes of the topology. In preference, MANET routing protocols should also support constrained low-power devices. One of the bottlenecks of scalability in link-state routing protocols is the performance of the shortest path algorithm (e.g. Dijkstra). In this document, we investigate the in-node performance of OLSRv2 and, in particular, study the benefits of using a dynamic shortest path (DSP) algorithm for this routing protocol. A DSP algorithm is an algorithm that adds or removes edges in the routing tree incrementally and calculates shortest paths, also incrementally. The performance in OLSRv2 with classic Dijkstra vs. DSP is evaluated, by comparing the CPU time for calculating paths in a large emulated network. Additionally, it is demonstrated that frequent topology changes due to mobility in MANETs lead to frequent routing table recalculations with only few routes updated each time. This property of MANETs makes the use of a DSP in OLSRv2 appropriate

Cross-Layer Service Discovery Mechanism for OLSRv2 Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Service discovery plays an important role in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). The lack of central infrastructure, limited resources and high mobility make service discovery a challenging issue for this kind of network. This article proposes a new service discovery mechanism for discovering and advertising services integrated into the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol Version 2 (OLSRv2). In previous studies, we demonstrated the validity of a similar service discovery mechanism integrated into the previous version of OLSR (OLSRv1). In order to advertise services, we have added a new type-length-value structure (TLV) to the OLSRv2 protocol, called service discovery message (SDM), according to the Generalized MANET Packet/Message Format defined in Request For Comments (RFC) 5444. Each node in the ad hoc network only advertises its own services. The advertisement frequency is a user-configurable parameter, so that it can be modified depending on the user requirements. Each node maintains two service tables, one to store information about its own services and another one to store information about the services it discovers in the network. We present simulation results, that compare our service discovery integrated into OLSRv2 with the one defined for OLSRv1 and with the integration of service discovery in Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) protocol, in terms of service discovery ratio, service latency and network overhead.This work is partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the Continuity of Service, Security and QoS for Transportation Systems (CONSEQUENCE) (TEC2010-20572-C02-01/02) and INcident monitoRing In Smart COmmunities (INRISCO) (TEC2014-54335-C4-2-R) projects. We thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, which helped us to improve our manuscript

Security Issues in the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol version 2 (OLSRv2)

Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) are leaving the confines of research laboratories, to find place in real-world deployments. Outside specialized domains (military, vehicular, etc.), city-wide community-networks are emerging, connecting regular Internet users with each other, and with the Internet, via MANETs. Growing to encompass more than a handful of ``trusted participants'', the question of preserving the MANET network connectivity, even when faced with careless or malicious participants, arises, and must be addressed. A first step towards protecting a MANET is to analyze the vulnerabilities of the routing protocol, managing the connectivity. By understanding how the algorithms of the routing protocol operate, and how these can be exploited by those with ill intent, countermeasures can be developed, readying MANETs for wider deployment and use. This memorandum takes an abstract look at the algorithms that constitute the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol version 2 (OLSRv2), and identifies for each protocol element the possible vulnerabilities and attacks -- in a certain way, provides a ``cookbook'' for how to best attack an operational OLSRv2 network, or for how to proceed with developing protective countermeasures against these attacks

Descubrimiento de servicios cross-layer basado en OLSR para redes Manet

El auge que en los últimos años ha tenido el uso de dispositivos móviles, su integración plena en la vida de las personas, así como el desarrollo expansivo de las redes inalámbricas, y en especial de las redes MANET (Mobile Ad hoc Network), hace que actualmente sea difícil imaginar un mundo sin dispositivos inteligentes personales que nos acompañen a todas partes como, por ejemplo, los smartphones y wearables. Las redes MANET [Ahvar et al, 2007], [Tyagi et al, 2010] están compuestas por nodos móviles autónomos que se unen voluntariamente formando una red entre ellos. Son redes en las que no existe una infraestructura de red fija y la administración se realiza de forma descentralizada. Esto permite que se cree una red prácticamente de la nada, sin necesidad de intervención humana ni configuraciones previas. Los nodos que integran la red participan en la toma de decisiones, tienen su propio conjunto de protocolos de encaminamiento, en el que toman parte de forma activa y tienen mecanismos de gestión de red y procesos de intercambio de información propios. La disponibilidad de estos nodos es generalmente corta. Son nodos que entran y salen de la red sin previo aviso, con lo que la topología de la red está continuamente cambiando de forma dinámica y aleatoria. La mayoría de estos nodos son dispositivos con limitado poder de procesamiento, limitada capacidad de memoria y baja capacidad de almacenamiento de energía. Que las redes MANET sean capaces de soportar descubrimiento de servicios se antoja indispensable. Debido a la movilidad de estas redes, en cualquier momento puede cambiar la topología y los servicios y recursos que se ofrecen en la red. Los dispositivos deben poder descubrir de forma automática los servicios que están disponibles en la red, así como los nodos que proporcionan estos servicios. En esta tesis doctoral proponemos un nuevo mecanismo de descubrimiento de servicios basado en OLSR (Optimized Link State Routing Protocol) [Clausen et al, 2003] para redes MANET, que permite que de forma automática un dispositivo o nodo descubra los servicios ofrecidos por otros nodos que lo rodean. SD-OLSR (Service Discovery over OLSR) es un mecanismo que permite anunciar servicios con una sobrecarga introducida en la red pequeña, una tasa de descubrimiento de servicios alta, una tasa baja de falsos descubrimientos y un tiempo en descubrir servicios mínimo. Inicialmente definimos el mecanismo de descubrimiento de servicios sobre la primera versión del protocolo OLSR (OLSRv1). Este mecanismo ofrecía la posibilidad de que un nodo anunciara y preguntara por servicios disponibles en la red. Dadas las características proactivas del protocolo de encaminamiento OLSR vimos que no era necesario inundar la red con mensajes preguntando por servicios que los nodos ya anunciaban periódicamente. Limitar los mensajes sólo al anuncio de servicios hizo que las prestaciones del protocolo mejoraran. En abril de 2014 se estandariza la segunda versión de OLSR, OLSRv2 [Clausen et al, 2014]. Una de las líneas que manteníamos abierta era integrar y optimizar el mecanismo propuesto para OLSRv1, sobre OLSRv2, aprovechando la versatilidad y mejoras realizadas en la segunda versión del protocolo de encaminamiento. Los resultados que hemos obtenido, nos hacen pensar que SD-OLSRv2 puede ser un serio candidato para descubrir servicios en redes MANET con un número de nodos grande. Cuanto más grande es la red, más posibilidades existen de que se pierdan paquetes y en consecuencia de que los mensajes de petición de servicio que envíen los nodos, no obtengan la respuesta con el servicio solicitado. Sin embargo, los nodos en SD-OLSRv2 están continuamente anunciando servicios, con lo que las consecuencias de las posibles pérdidas de paquetes son menores. De hecho, SD-OLSRv2 ofrece una alta tasa de descubrimiento de servicios, superior al 90 %, incluso cuando los nodos se mueven a velocidades altas. La tasa de falsos descubrimientos también es pequeña, menor del 0.5 %. Además, el tiempo que tarda un nodo en descubrir un servicio es casi instantáneo, del orden de decenas de milisegundos. Y todos los nodos tienen un conocimiento global de los servicios que se ofrecen en la red al mismo tiempo.The growth that the use of mobile devices has experienced, its full integration in people's lives, as well as the expansive development of wireless networks, and especially MANET (Mobile Ad Hoc Network) networks, makes it difficult to think of a world without intelligent personal devices coming with us everywhere, as for example smartphones and wearables. MANET networks [Ahvar et al, 2007], [Tyagi et al, 2010] consist of a collection of wireless autonomous mobile nodes that join voluntarily creating a network between them. They are networks with neither fixed infrastructure requirements nor centralized management for their operation. The network nodes work together with minimal central control and human intervention. All of the nodes of these networks behave as routers and take part in discovery and maintenance of routes to other nodes in the network. They also have their own network management mechanisms and information exchanging processes. The availability of these nodes is generally short. These nodes are free to move, to join or to leave the network at any time. They move randomly and organize themselves on a random basis. This high mobility of nodes causes the network topology to change in a random and dynamic way. Most of these nodes are devices with a limited processing power, a limited memory capacity and a low capacity of energy storage. MANET networks ability to support service discovery is completely indispensable. Due to the high mobility of nodes, the topology and the services and resources offered in the network may vary. Devices must be able to discover automatically the services that are available on the network as well as the nodes that provide these services. In this doctoral thesis we propose a new service discovery mechanism based on OLSR (Optimized Link State Routing Protocol) [Clausen et al, 2003] for MANET networks which allows any device or node to automatically discover the services offered by other nodes surrounding it. SD-OLSR (Service Discovery over OLSR) is a mechanism that allows to announce services with a small network overhead, a high rate of services discovery, a low rate of false discoveries and a minimum time lapse to discover services. We first define the service discovery mechanism integrated into the first version of the OLSR (OLSRv1) protocol. This mechanism provided the possibility that a node could announce and ask for available services on the network. Given the proactive features of the OLSR proactive protocol, we saw that it was not necessary to flood up the network with messages asking for services the nodes already announced periodically. Limiting these messages only to the announcement of services made the protocol's performance improve. In April 2014 the second version of OLSR is standardized, OLSRv2 [Clausen et al, 2014]. One of the lines we kept open was integrating and optimizing the mechanism integrated into OLSRv1 on OLSRv2, taking advantage of the versatility and improvements achieved in second version of OLSR routing protocol. The results we have achieved make us believe that SD-OLSRv2 may be a serious candidate to discover services in MANET networks with big amount of nodes. The bigger the network, the bigger the chances of losing packages and, consequently, of failing to obtain the service response to the service requested by the nodes. However, the nodes in SD-OLSRv2 are continuously announcing services, therefore the consequences of the possible losses of packages are small. As a matter of fact, SD-OLSRv2 offers a high rate of service discovery, over 90%, even when the nodes are moving at a high speed. The rate of false discoveries is also small, under 0,5%. Besides, a node discovers a given service almost instantaneously, it takes it some tens of milliseconds. And every node has the global knowledge of the services being offered on the network at the same time.Programa Oficial de Posgrado en Ingeniería TelemáticaPresidente: Gabriel Macía Fernández.- Secretario: Carlos García Rubio.- Vocal: Mary Luz Mouronte Lópe