Principles of secure network configuration:: Towards a formal basis for self-configuration

The challenge for autonomic network management is the provision of future network management systems that have the characteristics of self-management, self-configuration, self-protection and self-healing, in accordance with the high level objectives of the enterprise or human end-user. This paper proposes an abstract model for network configuration that is intended to help understand fundamental underlying issues in self-configuration. We describe the cascade problem in self-configuring networks: when individual network components that are securely configured are connected together (in an apparently secure manner), a configuration cascade can occur resulting in a mis-configured network. This has implications for the design of self-configuring systems and we discuss how a soft constraint-based framework can provide a solution.