OpenCAPWAP: An open source CAPWAP implementation
for the management and configuration of WiFi hot-spots
M. Bernaschi
a
, F. Cacace
b
, G. Iannello
b
, M. Vellucci
b
, L. Vollero
b,
*
a
Istituto Applicazioni del Calcolo-CNR, Rome, Italy
b
Università Campus Bio-Medico, CIR – Centro Integrato di Ricerca, Via Alvaro del Portillo 21, 00128 Rome, Italy
article info
Article history:
Available online 4 October 2008
Keywords:
CAPWAP
Wireless networks
DTLS
Network management
QoS support
Performance evaluation
abstract
The Control And Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP) protocol is under defi-
nition within the IETF to enable an Access Controller (AC) to manage a collection of Wire-
less Termination Points (WTPs). CAPWAP aims at simplifying the deployment and control
of large scale, possibly heterogeneous, wireless networks. We present the first open source
implementation of the CAPWAP protocol along with early experimental results aiming at
the assessment of its reliability and performances. The paper ends describing applications
of the CAPWAP protocol to management and QoS scenarios and discussing benefits and
technical issues concerning its use.
Ó 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The notion of Mobile Internet relies on scenarios where
mobile users may have access anytime and anywhere to
conventional and emerging Web applications requiring
multimedia and interactive communications. Wireless ac-
cess networks are the key element to implement these sce-
narios and much work has been done in recent years to
develop and improve wireless technologies, including the
introduction of support for mobility and Quality of Service.
In this respect, special interest has been paid to wireless lo-
cal area networks (WLANs) based on the IEEE 802.11 stan-
dard [4], that exhibits characteristics useful to pursue the
goals of the Mobile Internet, including a large number of
installations in a wide range of contexts.
Large deployments of Access Points pose serious prob-
lems in defining consistent strategies for their manage-
ment, configuration and control. These issues forced
network vendors to propose proprietary centralized solu-
tions aiming at simplifying functionalities commonly
requested by network administrators. All proposed solu-
tions share two common elements: (i) they split function-
alities that APs provide and (ii) they add more centralized
functions for the monitoring and the remote control of the
network. Splitting functionalities of APs allows the imple-
mentation of more flexible network infrastructures. In-
deed, it allows centralizing the management of critical
functions like channel selection, authentication and
encryption. Whereas, leaving in the APs time-critical func-
tions, like beacon generation and frames’ acknowledg-
ment, avoids the introduction of expensive components,
like high performance interconnections, making proposed
solutions competitive on the market. Moreover, the intro-
duction of additional proprietary functions may further in-
crease the level of flexibility in configuring and managing
the network.
Recently, an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Working Group, named Control and Provisioning of Wire-
less Access Points (CAPWAP), started its activity with the
goal of defining standard solutions to such issues. In partic-
ular, the CAPWAP WG focused on problems like configura-
tion, monitoring, control and management of large scale
deployments of wireless networks in general, and of IEEE
802.11 networks [6] in particular, identifying a number
1389-1286/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2008.09.016
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 0622541 9631; fax: +39 0622541
9606.
E-mail address: vollero@ieee.org (L. Vollero).
Computer Networks 53 (2009) 217–230
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Computer Networks
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comnet
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