The TCP/IP protocol allows the different nodes in a network to communicate by associating a different IP address to each node. In wired or wireless networks with infrastructure, we have a server or node acting as such which correctly assigns IP addresses, but in mobile ad hoc networks there is no such centralized entity capable of carrying out this function. Therefore, a protocol is needed to perform the network configuration automatically and in a dynamic way, which will use all nodes in the network (or part thereof) as if they were servers that manage IP addresses. This article reviews the major proposed auto-configuration protocols for mobile ad hoc networks, with particular emphasis on one of the most recent: D2HCP. This work also includes a comparison of auto-configuration protocols for mobile ad hoc networks by specifying the most relevant metrics, such as a guarantee of uniqueness, overhead, latency, dependency on the routing protocol and uniformity.

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) are multihop wireless networks of mobile nodes without any fixed or preexisting infrastructure. The topology of these networks can change randomly due to the unpredictable mobility of nodes and their propagation characteristics. In most networks, including MANETs, each node needs a unique identifier to communicate. This work presents a distributed protocol for dynamic node IP address assignment in MANETs. Nodes of a MANET synchronize from time to time to maintain a record of IP address assignments in the entire network and detect any IP address leaks. The proposed stateful autoconfiguration scheme uses the OLSR proactive routing protocol for synchronization and guarantees unique IP addresses under a variety of network conditions, including message losses and network partitioning. Simulation results show that the protocol incurs low latency and communication overhead for IP address assignment.

Ad hoc networks are built on the basis of a communication without infrastructure and major investigations have focused on the routing and autoconfiguration problems. However, there is a little progress in solving the secure autoconfiguration problems in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), which has led to the proliferation of threats given the vulnerabilities of MANETs. It is clear that ad hoc networks have no centralized mechanism for defense against threats, such as a firewall, an intrusion detection system, or a proxy. Therefore, it is necessary that the defense of interests of each of the ad hoc components is the responsibility of each member node. This paper shows the most common threats to ad hoc networks and reviews several proposals that attempt to minimize some of these threats, showing their protection ability and vulnerabilities in light of the threats that might arise.

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