Proto²Testbed: Towards an Integrated Testbed for Evaluating End-to-End Security Protocols in Satellite Constellations

There are many approaches to testbed systems in computer networks, but especially when evaluating or developing new security protocols and testing their behavior when used via satellite networks, many challenges remain that no existing system has fully addressed.With Proto<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>Testbed, we present an approach for a new testbed system that relies on isolated virtual machines. Once a specific testbed is defined, many steps of a typical testbed lifecycle, like testbed setup and experiment coordination, are fully automated. The testbed can be used in multiple ways; one example is the integration of a satellite mega-constellation simulation, thus turning the testbed system into a complete end-to-end emulation environment.Examples are used to demonstrate that Proto<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>Testbed can be used for various experiments in its current state. The design of future experiments is outlined, which will include a testbed for extensive evaluations of end-to-end security protocols.