Extending IKEv2 for multi-vendor home network environment

The importance of a key management scheme in any modern security protocol can never be over estimated. No matter how strong an encryption or an authentication algorithm is, if the distribution of keys is poorly managed and carelessly designed, that scheme is doomed to fail. Among key management protocols, most prominent is Internet key exchange (IKE) used with IPSec. Due to its flexibility and diversity of options available, its complexity is an open secret. In this paper we have made a humble effort to describe its main components in a simple, precise but comprehensive way. We propose an extension of IKEv2 to resolve trust issue in home networks where three multi vendor parties are required to communicate securely