Modeling TCP/IP stack in a single custom processor, with secure data transmission to an Altera-based Web server

Many challenges have been investigated in the past few years to make network communications more secured, more reliable, scalable, standardized, and higher performance. Implementations of these researches vary, taking into consideration several features of embedded system design, such as cost, flexibility, performance, and size. Embedded system cores for network communication are becoming much important recently; due to the demands placed by Smart Grid, sensor mobile network, and etc. However, embedded system designs have unique challenges such as cost, flexibility, and size. In this research, we are aiming to achieve secure and high performance network communication based on TCP/IP protocol stack. NicheStack TCP/IP is a light weight library written in C. Furthermore, in this research, we deployed NicheStack TCP/IP on Nios II processor to serve as protocol suit for a Web server application. Then, we integrated the ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography) C code within the web server source code to achieve a secure communication; therefore, we had to know exactly which part of the web server source code is responsible for receiving data from the client and transmitting the data to the Altera board's LCD. Consequently, we made sure that the integrated system: the web server, and the ECC program hides information if the secret is not provided. We used an http client to access the web server through the Internet. The client sends an encrypted data through the network to the web server application that is based on Nios II system securely.