Wireless sensor network monitoring using the Simple Network Management Protocol

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have long been separate networks using non-standard, custom and application speci c protocols. The arrival of IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Network (6LoWPAN) changes this, with the Internet Protocol (IP) being the common protocol between conventional IP networks and Wireless Sensor Networks. Through the use of 6LoWPAN implementations like blip, developed for the WSN operating system TinyOS, it is possible to make use of the advantages that the common IP layer brings. This includes the reuse of techniques, protocols and software that are already developed for, and in use on, conventional IP networks.One such protocol is the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), which is a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) based protocol used for monitoring and management in conventional IP networks. This work describes an implementation of the rst version of the SNMP in nesC for TinyOS using the blip 6LoWPAN implementation. The SNMPv1 software agent imple- mentation requires no modi cation to the 6LoWPAN stack and responds to standard SNMP get and set requests. This means that standard SNMP software can be used to communicate with the implemented SNMP software agent. Therefore network monitoring packages like Nagios and Cacti can be used to monitor wireless sensor networks.Relevant background information is discussed, ranging from the division of commu- nication between network nodes into logical layers, to similar work done and the Simple Network Management Protocol. The implementation of the SNMP software agent is ex- amined, along with the anatomy of an SNMP GetRequest message in aid of understanding the structure of SNMP messages.The SNMP agent implementation is then tested against network monitoring tools like Cacti, Nagios and applications from the Net-SNMP package. The results verify the correct operation of the SNMP software agent and demonstrate the added functionality that the software agent provides.