Distributed certificate validation in MANET

The need for certificate management in mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) is the background for this report. A prototype implementation of a distributed certificate validation service is presented and evaluated. The proposed design is based on an overlay network of proxy nodes offering certificate validation over the XKMS protocol. The proxy nodes employ cooperative caching in order to offer certificate validation even when the central validation authority is out of reach. The cache will also contribute to lower network traffic in the area around the validation authority. The conclusion from the experimental evaluation shows that the availability of the validation service does increase as a result of the overlay proxy network, but is quite dependent on the mobility scenario in use. The observed traffic around the validation authority is reduced with a considerable margin. (root VA).