Dual-Stack Network Management Through One-Time Authentication Mechanism

Abstract

The exhaustion of IPv4 addresses has led to the rapid implementation of IPv6. However, the design of IPv6 is incompatible with that of its predecessor IPv4 and slows down the development of the IPv4-to-IPv6 migration. Several transitioning mechanisms have been proposed to attain the compatibility of IPv4 and IPv6 to bridge the gap between these two heterogeneous protocols. The two protocols would need to coexist continually before IPv6 completely takes over IPv4. However, the existing captive portal authentication systems generally do not support IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack authentication and lack one-time dual-stack authentication solutions. Upgrading the authentication system has become an urgent problem to be addressed. This study presents dual-stack network management strategies using a novel one-time authentication mechanism for large and complex dual-stack network environments. The proposed authentication system resolves the inconvenience of separate IPv4 and IPv6 authentication and effectively improves the compatibility of the two protocols. Furthermore, authenticating both IPv4 and IPv6 increases the traceability of traffic logs when security attacks occur. The proposed solution is deployed in a campus dormitory environment, and the feasibility and stability are successfully verified.