Prime DHCP: a prime numbering address allocation mechanism for MANETs

Most address allocation schemes rely on broadcasting for address solicitation and/or duplicate address detection. In this paper, we propose a Prime DHCP scheme that can allocate addresses to the hosts of a MANET without broadcasting over the whole MANET. Prime DHCP makes each host a DHCP proxy of the MANET and run a prime numbering address allocation algorithm individually to compute unique addresses for address allocation. The concept of DHCP proxies and the prime numbering address allocation algorithm together eliminate the needs for broadcasting in the MANET. Performance results show that Prime DHCP can significantly reduce the signal overhead and the latency for hosts to acquire addresses.