Design and Implementation of a Secure Group Communication Protocol on a Fault Tolerant Ring

In this paper, we describe a secure group communication protocol for a fault-tolerant synchronous ring. Our protocol, named Secure Synchronous Ring Protocol (SSRP), integrates a secure group communication facility into an existing scalable, fault-tolerant ring protocol. SSRP is a hierarchical group communication protocol that employs Cliques GDH contributory key management protocol and Diffie-Hellman encryption algorithm. Security related functions and group communication functions are integrated into a single layer guaranteeing that not only the application messages of the group, but also the messages related to the group communication layer are protected. A novel faulttolerant leader election algorithm and a proof of Virtual Synchrony semantics on SSRP are also given.