EasyMANET: an extensible and configurable platform for service provisioning in MANET environments

Mobile ad hoc networks are highly dynamic networks that offer multihop communications in the presence of changing topologies without the need for any fixed infrastructure support. These networks can be useful in a wide variety of scenarios, but setting them up and deploying services on them is a difficult task, even for experienced users. In this article we present EasyMANET - an extensible platform the main objective of which is to encourage the widespread adoption and use of MANETs by non-expert users. To achieve this objective, EasyMANET provides two essential elements: an address autoconfiguration system and a name resolution service known as Visual DNS. The autoconfiguration system allows users to join an 802.11-based MANET by establishing the parameters of their terminal interfaces quickly and transparently. Thereafter, Visual DNS offers a graphical view of MANET participants and gives users the possibility to access the services made available by other users. Examples are communication services (text-based chat, VoIP, videoconference), file sharing, and localization services. We performed several laboratory experiments, and evaluated the performance of EasyMANET based on address autoconfiguration time and Visual DNS performance. Results show that EasyMANET can be established within seconds, and EasyMANET applications are easy to use. In fact, over 360 students have tried using Easy- MANET without problems.