wireless lan topology visualiser project supervisor: dr arkady zaslavsky project team members:...
Post on 15-Jan-2016
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Wireless LAN Topology Wireless LAN Topology VisualiserVisualiser
Project Supervisor:
Dr Arkady Zaslavsky
Project Team Members:
Jignesh Rambhia
Robert Mark Bram
Tejas Magia
Wireless LANWireless LAN
Wireless LAN infrastructureAllow mobile users connect to networkAccess Points
- Cisco Aironet series - Apple AirPort
Protocols used: - 80211.b - Bluetooth
Overview of functionsOverview of functions
Web accessible visualisation of system mapped onto physical locations
Active polling of access pointsDynamic discovery of access points
(not implemented)Storing data to allow for tracking of changeEvent notification
Visualiser has a Data BaseVisualiser has a Data Base
Initial registration gathers static data– Geographic location, IP address, Contact details
of point administrator
Continual polling updates dynamic data– Number of users, bytes sent and received
Browse TopologyBrowse TopologyThe user browses access point topology
through mapsFrom World… click locations to zoom in
To Country..
Browse TopologyBrowse Topology
To State..
Browse TopologyBrowse Topology
To Campus.. where a mouse roll-over displays whatever information you are authorised to see.
Browse TopologyBrowse Topology
Administer AccessAdminister AccessPoints Directly Points Directly
And a click will bring you to the Access Point’s administration page (if you have username and password)
Visualisation displays any combination of data based on user authorisation level,determined by login– Administrator can alter settings,
start and stop system– Registered user can view all parts of visualisation– Public user can view the visualisation without data
Administrator sees all, public sees none!
Authorisation LevelsAuthorisation Levels
Administrative Tool – Administrative Tool – Monitoring and ManagementMonitoring and Management
Administrator monitors status of access points– Network Traffic – users and data rates– Online or offline
Direct management of access points via links to access point web servers
Maps access points to physical locations
Display Up to date DataDisplay Up to date Data
Display current data on all access points– Human readable location data– Internet Address– MAC Address– Type of hardware– Number of users– Bytes sent in time period– Bytes received in time period
User LevelsUser Levels
Allow three levels of accessAdministrator
- alter settings, start and stop systemRegistered user
- view all parts of visualisationPublic user
- view the visualisation without data
Design PrinciplesDesign Principles
Modular – Independent subsystems
Liveliness Maintenance Extensibility
– Development of tool set Totally configurable
– All settings read from configuration file XML data storage
– No commerical databases– Human readable data format
XML data structureXML data structure XML structures nest element instances within
other element instances. Each element is a record – each XML document
has one root element World is the root
– locations Location instances
– accessPoints accessPoint instances
Locations and Access PointsLocations and Access Points
Both record types have data in commonA unique IDMap they are linked to (ID of another
Location), x and y co-ordinate of their position on that map
Data that can be displayed on the web with a rollover (HTML table tag)
LocationsLocations
Locations store data about the map that is used to visualise that location
Access Point ProfilesAccess Point Profiles The network is
heterogeneous – different types of Access Point hardware may make different data available.
A common data set is defined with a master profile
Specialisation is allowed with a type specific element
Access Point RecordsAccess Point Records Some items of data will be
displayed on their visualisation. They store a title and display value
Some items of data will be polled for updates. They must contain enough access data to allow this to happen.
PollingPolling
Each Access Point is periodically polled to update certain items of data
Different Access Points make this data available in different ways– HTTP on an internal web server– Telnet– Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
The system maintains a library of classes for each access method and ensures the correct one is used for each item of data
Web data preparationWeb data preparation
Periodically a subset of the Access Point data is extracted from its XML file and stored in another, formatted for easy display
VisualisationVisualisation
Servlets are run on the server side, taking HTTP requests from users and displaying the maps with data extracted by the previous subsystem
Data entryData entry
New Access Points can be added to the system through a simple GUI.
MailingMailing
A mail system is used to implement event notification
Whenever an error has occurred in the system, notification is sent
Whenever an Access Point has not responded to polling three times in a row, a notification is sent
LoggingLogging
A logging API is used that allows logged messages to be sent to a number of places at once:– A terminal– An on-screen text component– A data file– Any number of listening ‘streams’
ControlControl
Applets to control system
TechnologyTechnology
Development Environments:– JBuilder and TextPlus to build Java classes– XML Spy to build XML files
Programming API’s– Java SDK 1.2 and Servlet libraries– Java Mail API and Activation Framework– JCE encryption API– JAXB to parse XML
LimitationsLimitationsFor XML parsing we used JAXB
– JAXB parses XML DTD files and constructs a specialised set of Java classes for them
– JAXB unmarshalls - parses XML into a set of Java objects
– JAXB marshalls – writes Java objects back to XML
– JAXB is only in its first release– It can only parse DTD’s– It does not implement all parts of DTD spec
LimitationsLimitationsAccess Techniques
– No generic access method was found– HTTP or Telnet methods both receive
formatted text that must be parsed
Dynamic discovery impossible– Addhost unreliable– No identifiable pattern in MAC addresses
Future workFuture work
Administrative Tool for Security and Trouble Shooting– Detect new access points added to system
SNMP?
– Perform data analysis for network problems
A more fluid Data entry system – for Locations, Users and Access Points