Enabling Plug-n-Play in Named Data Networking

“Plug-and-play” is a highly desired property in networking, which enables new entities to be plugged into a networked system following a systematic, and automated if possible, process to start playing, i.e. sending and receiving packets. In IP networks, DHCP services provide the plug function to enable an IP host to play. In this paper we discuss the plug step in an NDN network, articulate the fundamental differences in NDN's plug step as compared to that of IP, and describe our initial designs for plugging new entities into an NDN network in three different use case scenarios. These design exercises show that NDN's plug process requires mutual authentication between the configurer and the configuree (the entity to be plugged in), which is context specific and represents a major challenge in the plug process. We addressed this challenge by making use of existing authentication systems.