MAYA: A Tool For Wireless Mesh Networks Management

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) require specialized management software to reduce the setup and configuration time. Although wireless routers can be configured independently, some parameters, like the ESSID or the channel, are common to all the network elements and a change in one of these parameters would cause partitioning problems if it does not take place on all routers simultaneously. In this paper we present MAYA, an efficient and secure tool specifically designed for wireless mesh management and configuration. MAYA augments the basic functionality offered by the firmware on routers to cover the global requirements of a WMN. In our analysis we detail the system architecture, its main components and the implementation details. We also evaluate the latency associated to the different management tasks under variable traffic conditions.