Lowcaf: A Low-Code Protocol Analysis Framework

Evaluating a communication protocol’s design in terms of compliance and security is a very complex and time-consuming task. It requires the configuration of suitable test environments and test scenarios as well as the evaluation of procedures and handling of network traffic. A plethora of tools and frameworks exist that tackle individual problems of low-level networking but they usually presume robust programming skills and lack visualization. In contrast we propose an approach, derived from node-based processing systems, that conveys a clear logical picture that is still flexible and extensible enough to be adaptable to real-time processing or simulation of arbitrary networking components. In this paper, we present the concept for a visually programmable low-code communication protocol analysis framework (Lowcaf) that can be used either stand-alone to simulate network components or be used together with arbitrary backends. We also showcase our prototypical implementation of this framework and how it can be combined with the popular deterministic network simulator ns-3.