Challenge Overview
The Office of Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) at NASA Headquarters leads the Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) investigation with the goal of advancing the maturity and heritage (space flight use) of the DTN communication protocols.
Delay tolerant networks make use of store-and-forward techniques within the network in order to compensate for intermittent link connectivity. In the DTN the fundamental concept is an architecture based on Internet-independent middleware where protocols at all layers are used that best suit the operation within each environment, with a new overlay network protocol (bundle protocol) inserted between the applications and the locally optimized communications stacks.
This architecture aims to design the ION-DTN changes that are needed to support LTP Authentication extension.
This assembly is responsible for implementing changes of ION security policy utilities that are needed for LTP Authentication, as well as a few data models for LTP Authentication.
Note that the architect has put a lot of effort to provide entry points and updated source codes.
Final Submission Guidelines
See attached Architecture documents - download section at the right side of the screen. UML diagram contains very detailed implementation notes already in C. Assemblers will have to validate the code and test.
Main deliverables:
- Updated Source Code and Change Log explaining the changes.
- Deployment guide explaining how to build, configure and verify the application.
- Updated "man" page for ionsecrc commands file to include the new commands for LTP authentication rules.
Test:
- You must create a loopback-ltp-auth configuration at config folder (see ION-DTN source code). Clone loopback-ltp configuration and basically change what is need on loopback.ionsecrc file
- You must create a 1600.loopback-auth test file at test folder (see ION-DTN source code). Clone 1000.loopback test code and update what is needed in dotest.c file.
Source Code Comments:
- There will be no strict rule for source code comments for functions. Use mainly inline comments, wisely.
Environment:
- Linux (Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS is recommend)
- C
- GCC (latest stable version 4.8.1 is recommended)
- Make (latest stable version 3.82 is recommended)
- ION-DTN 3.1.3
- PolarSSL 1.2.8
Deployment Instructions:
Assemblers can code in a local Ubuntu environment since only loopback connection is needed to validate the configuration. At the downloads section at the right you can find instructions on how to setup ION-DTN. It is applicable for VMs, but it should be easily adapted for local environments. You can also follow ION-DTN tutorials from the source code distribution.
Developers should work on local environment to implement the changes. If you have problem testing in your local environment, please ask for assistance and we will work on setting up a VM for you.
We have a very restricted number of VMs to provision. Since this is a development task, assemblers should be able to compile locally. If you have problems setting up ION-DTN for testing, please ask for assistance and we will try setting up a VM for you.