VESMP (VERY SHORT MESSAGE PROTOCOL)

AN SMS-BASED PROTOCOL FOR PROCESS MONITORING

AND SYSTEM REMOTE ADMINISTRATION

Thomas Ndie Djotio, Claude Tangha

Department of Computer Science, LABORIMA, Ecole Nationale Supérieure Polytechnique de Yaoundé

University of Yaounde I, PoBox 8390 Melen, Yaounde, Cameroon

Georges Edouard Kouamou

Department of Computer Science, LABORIMA, Ecole Nationale Supérieure Polytechnique de Yaoundé

University of Yaounde I, PoBox 8390 Melen, Yaounde, Cameroon

Keywords: Protocol, process monitoring, remote administration, Short Message Service (SMS).

Abstract: In this paper we propose a Very Short Message protocol (VeSMp), a simple SMS-based protocol for

process monitoring and system remote administration. This protocol offers the system administrator an

additional means of supervising and monitoring the activity or the state of processes and services via a

mobile terminal. VeSMp transforms a Global Mobile Standard (GSM) terminal by means of SMS service

into a true station of system administration as well as a PC connected to a corporate network. This protocol

uses an original concept which we call VeSM (for Very Short Message). VeSM represents a very short

message, an alias or extensible shortcut which makes it possible to implicitly exceed the conventional limit

of 160 characters maximum used in SMS.

1 INTRODUCTION

This paper presents the integration of Short Message

Service (SMS) technology in the process of system

administration in general, and in the field of process

monitoring in particular. Indeed, the SMS became

very popular in Europe and Asia where more

advanced numerical networks made it available long

before it started in North America (Pons, 2001). It is

less than one decade since Global Standard for

Mobile (GSM) technology was popularized in the

developing countries including Cameroon. New

applications of this service are increasing each day

(Enck et al., 2005), (Trosby, 2004), (NewNet

SMserverTM, 1999), (Wikipedia, 2006). For the

owners of GSM terminals, it is an alternative to

lower costs in terms of communication. For certain

economic operators, it is an added value of service

(Ngadeu, 2003) making it possible to improve the

profitability of the company as well as a traditional

product on sale in the case of hardware shops. For us

it is an opportunity of offering a system

administrator an additional means to improve

activities of system monitoring in companies and

especially in Small and Medium-sized Businesses

(SMB), where the presence of a System

administrator is not basically essential in

permanence.

In terms of system and network monitoring, the

company faces the following problems today:

necessity to manage the availability and the

performances of new applications and network

services, increase in the number of mobile

personnel; and security. In response, we propose

solutions based on technologies of lower cost to

carry out the tasks and large scale actions. These

solutions at average scale have impact on the

development and the blooming of SMB.

We propose the VeSMp protocol, an original

alternative of exploiting the SMS service for remote

administration and the monitoring of processes. The

idea, born from a simple report is motivated by the

growing interest that mobile users of telephones and

the companies attach to SMS technology. We also

introduce here an original concept called VeSM

Ndie Djotio T., Tangha C. and Edouard Kouamou G. (2007).

VESMP (VERY SHORT MESSAGE PROTOCOL) AN SMS-BASED PROTOCOL FOR PROCESS MONITORING AND SYSTEM REMOTE ADMINIS-

TRATION.

In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Wireless Information Networks and Systems, pages 25-32

DOI: 10.5220/0002144600250032

 SciTePress

which allows for circumventing the conventional

limit of the maximum number of characters which

an SMS can contain. Our approach in this article

first uses a state of the art which extends the

fundamental concepts related to the principles and

operations of SMS service, system monitoring and

the logic of establishing a protocol of management.

Secondly, we present the description of VeSMp, our

protocol of communication. It consists of presenting

its model and architecture, and also the abstractions

which made it possible for its realisation. We end up

by showing how VeSMp is integrated into the

standards of network management like Simple

Network Management Protocol (SNMP) of

Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

(TCP/IP) and Common Management Information

Protocol (CMIP) of Open System Interconnection

(OSI) (Pugolles pp 829-876, 2002).

2 STATE OF THE ART

Compared to the Internet which is seen today as the

greatest technological revolution of the century, the

success of SMS service has taken their providers by

surprise, the operators of GSM (Trosby, 2004).

2.1 Short Message Service (SMS)

The SMS offered by the GSM network appeared on

the scene for the first time in 1991 in Europe and is

defined as "a globally accepted wireless mobile

service that enables the transmission of

alphanumeric messages between mobile subscribers

and external systems such as electronic mail, paging

and voice mail systems" (NewNet SMserverTM,

1999). However, it is since the 1980s that experts in

the communities of GSM operators thought of

additional services based on text messages in their

offers in addition to those already existing, such as

voice in particular (Wikipedia, 2006).

This service of text messages of a maximum

length of 160 characters (coded using ASCII 7 bits

on 140 bytes) makes it possible for a user to carry

out, starting from his mobile terminal, the transfer of

messages to one or more recipients having GSM

mobile telephones equally or to a similar external

entity with GSM network called Shorts Message

Entity (SME) (Pons, 2001). The exchanges of short

messages (textos or SMS by abuse) are possible

thanks to the network of Signaling System n°7 (SS7)

(Trosby, 2004), (Pons, 2001). Given the differences

with other existing text services like paging, SMS

service guarantees the delivery of messages by the

network (NewNet SMserverTM, 1999), while

temporary failures are identified and short messages

are stored on the network until the recipient becomes

available. Indeed, if the latter is available, the

message is directly transmitted to him on his

terminal, if not; it is stored on a central server of

short messages SMS Center (SMSC) through which

it passes. The SMSC ensures the storage of the Short

Message (SM) in databases like Gammu

(gammu.org, 2006). Gammu is a project which

encompasses applications, scripts and drivers for

managing various functions on cellular phones and

similar devices. It also ensures the distribution of

SM to mobile terminal recipients (when these appear

in the GSM network to which they belong) in the

limit of their date of validity. The logical channels of

voice and data transmission are separated so that the

two services can simultaneously be available. As

soon as the mobile terminal is identified, the

network informs the SMSC that it can successfully

deliver the message to its recipient. The SMSC is

located by a telephone number pertaining to the

Public Mobile Land Network (PLMN). The dialogue

between the SMSC and the mobile terminal is done

through the Mobile-services Switching Center

(MSC) (Pons, 2001).

The missions initially assigned to the SMS

service are today largely exceeded. There are many

examples of operating the SMS service. Today

several Internet services are coupled with SMS.

They include: email, instant messaging, the services

of information (climatology, meteorology),

interactive banking, etc. The benefits of SMS are

today very numerous (Wikipedia, 2006), (Girondo

Stéphane), (De Wulf, 2001). Authors in reference

(NewNet SMserverTM, 1999) propose an

inexhaustive range of the most outstanding SMS

services today. We mention some here:

 Reminder/calendar to point out appointments,

meetings or important events.

 The reservation of places on trains, planes or

other means of transportation.

 Notification services of events: (1) in the field

of network monitoring, physical and logical

safety and security, (2) announcement of

birthdays, (3) advertisements, (4) email which

informs one of the presence of an email, (5)

voice / fax which indicates the presence of a

fax or voice message. (6) …

 The organization of television quiz by

broadcasters,

 Communications at lower cost.

 …

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This list is inexhaustive. As proof; authors of

(SMS Tutorial, 2007) mentioned that SMS can be

used to monitor stock market alert application, “a

program is constantly monitoring and analyzing the

stock market. If a certain condition is satisfied, the

program will send a text message to the user's

mobile phone to notify him/her of the situation”.

They also present SMS as a tool of remote system

monitoring: “a program (sometimes with the help of

a group of sensors) is constantly monitoring the

status of a remote system. If a certain condition is

satisfied, the program will send a text message to the

system administrator to notify him/her of the

situation. For example, a program may be written to

"ping" a server regularly. If no response is received

from the server, the program can send an SMS alert

to the system administrator to notify him/her that the

server may be hanged.” Among the most important

stakes of the future, the best success will be

(NewNet SMserverTM, 1999) "to be able to use the

handset as an extension of the computer" and it is

what we try to prove with VeSMp protocol: to make

of a GSM mobile terminal a true station for

monitoring remote systems. William Enck & al

(Enck et al., 2005) shows that it is possible to put a

city of the size of Washington D.C. out of terrorist

attacks using a simple SMS.

2.2 Process Monitoring

Process monitoring covers the set of functions which

are necessary for the follow-up and maintenance of

systems processes. It is necessary for a System or

Network Administrator to initialize new services, to

supervise the state of the global system of a

company server or a given machine on a corporate

network. It is also necessary to follow in a

reasonable way the evolution of the performances

and put an end to abnormal situations. One

distinguishes the services of configurations, of test

and diagnosis (faults management, maintenance,

measurements of performances, etc.)

The Administrator needs tools to act and follow

the activity of his system and to guarantee its

availability at any time and place. Among these

tools, we will distinguish the native tools from

integrated solutions. Native tools are those furnished

by the editors of the operating systems like telnet

(Girondo Stéphane), ssh (De Wulf, 2001). The

integrated solutions tools are those provided by

proprietary editors or vendors such as CiscoWorks

Solutions of Cisco Inc. (Cisco Works, 2006),

OpenView of HP (Open View, 2006) and Soltice of

Sun (Solstice Sun, 2006). VeSMp is classified in this

last category of tools of remote administration. It

allows the remote operation of the system in order to

carry out technical inventories of the

services/processes, their settings, their

activation/deactivation; stop/restart from a telephone

handset no matter its geographical location thanks to

the roaming service of GSM operators.

3 THE VERY SHORT MESSAGE

PROTOCOL (VeSMp)

A protocol of communication defines a number of

formalisms that two or more remote entities must

use to communicate together and cooperate to carry

out a task or to exchange information each other. In

the field of system and network administration for

example, it makes it possible to develop software

tools for system and network management in an

efficient, coherent and standardized way. These

tools allow the piloting of remote systems resources,

real time monitoring and assistance with the

diagnosis of breakdowns of systems. VeSMp forms

part of the family of protocols making it possible to

carry out actions in real time on the system to know

its operating conditions (monitoring and diagnosis of

incidents, measurement of real load, maintenance,

control, information systems, etc) and react to them

(activation/deactivation, stop/restart of the

services/processes) (Postel and Reynolds, 1983). It

can also allow deferred actions and estimate impacts

on the system at a programmed moment.

3.1 Formal Description and Synopsis of

VeSMp: Format of Use

VeSMp is a simple protocol based on SMS. It is a

protocol of communication which we developed to

give direction to messages that an application can

interpret. In fact, the majority of actual system and

network administration solutions as those mentioned

above use TCP/IP protocol to perform the remote

access to the corporate LAN before impact on

system or network settings. The VeSMp protocol is

based on GSM protocol and allows transforming an

SMS to a valid system command. Its goal is to say

much with least possible characters. VeSMp actually

realizes five specific or proprietary commands: (1)

cmd (for a system command), (2) rtn (for return)

(3)

lgn (for login), (4) pwd (for password) and (5)

lgt (for Logout). Its synopsis or its format of

operation is as follow:

VeSMp (VERY SHORT MESSAGE PROTOCOL): AN SMS-BASED PROTOCOL FOR PROCESS MONITORING

AND SYSTEM REMOTE ADMINISTRATION

##cmd CommandName [arguments]

[MachineName] [rtn]

We describe hereafter the syntax of the synopsis of

a VeSMp message.

1. A VeSMp message is an SMS which starts with

##.

2. A VeSMp instruction is all complete command

that can be executed on an Operating System

(OS) command line interface or shell. It starts

with a succession of three letters (for example

cmd) followed by the standard or real system

name of the command provided by the OS

accompanied with arguments:

cmd

CommandName [arguments]. An instruction

describes the action to be executed. It is ended

by the character

3. Instructions are separated from each other by

the character

CommandName specifies the real or standard

name of the command to be executed on the

Shell provided by the OS of the machine

[MachineName]

[Arguments] represents the list of acceptable

arguments by the command. If the command

comprises arguments, they are inserted

following the command separated from each

other by the space character.

[MachineName] allows specification according

to the naming conventions of the Network

Administrator, the name of the machine of the

network on which the command must be

executed. It can be either an IP (Internet

Protocol) address, or a DNS (Domain Name

Service) name, or a reference symbol.

7. The command

rtn specified at the end of the

string allows a VeSMp-based application to

send back to the user the result of the execution

of the command.

8. The user has the possibility of pre-defining his

instructions thanks to shortcuts or alias and thus

of reducing the number of characters of the

VeSMp message. We have baptized this

extensible shortcut VeSM (for Very Short

Message). It is thanks to this original

mechanism that we can address a command that

can exceed the maximum length of 160

characters of a conventional SMS.

We will hereafter illustrate the use of VeSMp

protocol from an application by some examples.

Let us consider the following example:

##cmd dsk#rtn#cmd /sbin/service

mysqld restart#

At the reception of this VeSM, the application

will know that it is a VeSMp request. dsk (for disk;

Linux command) will return (by a SMS) the

partition statistics of the remote system, and cmd

will execute the command which restarts (restart)

the mysql server (mysqld) on a Linux machine.

This command is in the system folder /sbin/service.

We propose here other examples to show the

possibilities of VeSMp.



##cmd /sbin/service mysqld

start#cmd /sbin/service httpd

stop#

: this VeSM makes it possible to

execute two commands on a Linux server: on a

Fedora Core server, the first (

/sbin/service

mysqld start

) starts the MySQL server and

the second (

/sbin/service httpd stop)

stops the Apache server.



##cmd notepad.exe#: this VeSM launches

the notepad.exe program on all the Windows

machines of the local area network (LAN).



##cmd gedit#: this launches the text editor

gedit on all the linux machines of the LAN.



##cmd firefox

http://www.google.com#: this VeSM uses

firefox on any concerned machine to launch

the google’s web site; firefox is the command

and http://www.google.com is the argument

used by firefox.



##cmd du –sh /home#cmd df –h#rtn#:

here we see the possibilities of returning the

result. The first command gives the statistics

of use of the folder /home. The second posts

the statistics of all the partitions on the linux

server. But only the statistics of the partitions

will be returned to the user by SMS because it

alone is followed by an instruction rtn.



##aaa#: this example of VeSM represents a

contracted form or alias of the command to be

sent. The subjacent command can exceed the

conventional number (160) of characters of an

SMS. The latter will be interpreted by a parser

on the VeSMp server.

These examples illustrate some inexhaustive

potentials of our VeSMp protocol. We describe in

the following part the conceptual and management

model of it.

3.2 Conceptual Model and Technical

Architecture of VeSMp Protocol

Our model is based on the client/server model and

the models of network management described in

(Pugolles pp 829-876, 2002). VeSMp management

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includes the system management which defines the

exchanges of the whole information of management

concerning the processes related to the resources

used in the network. This information of

management is stored in a database of information

of administration called VeSMp Management

Information Base (VeSMpMIB). This database

consists of two essential tables. The purpose of this

database is to store: (1) the VeSMp commands and

(2) the information of management of the system or

the network to be supervised.

A System administrator starting from a

management entity (ME) sends a VeSMp message

which will be forwarded by GSM radio channel to

the SMSC. GSM radio channel ensures the service

of remote operation (RO). The latter gives the VeSM

to the Server or Manager of the management entity

(VeSMpME) on the corporate network. The

Administrator’s terminal is the VeSMp client

(VeSMpCl). It is also a management entity. More

generally, VeSMpCl is all equipment used to send a

VeSM and to receive an SMS. It can be all GSM

terminals like a mobile handset or a computer

connected to Internet or not on which an SMS-based

application functions. The server management entity

is a module installed on a machine of the network.

The VeSMpMIB can or cannot be installed or

configured on this machine. The SMSC

communicates with the VeSMp server either by

bluetooth, or by infra-red, or by data-cable or Null

modem cable connected to a COM port, or by other

compatible means. At the reception of the VeSM,

the VeSMp server interprets it based on the

information contained in the VeSMpMIB. If it is a

valid command (see synopsis into 3.1), then an

application entity (AE) takes on its execution. This

execution will imply the calling of TCP/IP or OSI

functions of management. If not, the client receives

an SMS notification on behalf of the Manager of the

application entity (AE). An AE must be configured

and installed on each station of the network. The

technical architecture of the conceptual and

management model of VeSMp is illustrated in figure

1 below. It materializes the deployment of entities

involve in the VeSMp protocol. Each entity of the

network can have its VeSMpMIB. We can also

configure one centralized VeSMpMIB for the whole

of the entities.

Figure 1: Technical architecture of the conceptual and

management model of the VeSMp protocol.

3.3 The Algorithm of Management of

VeSMp Protocol

The principle of management of VeSMp is simple.

A Management Entity of VeSMp called VeSMpME

is any device able to send and receive SMS. It can

be a GSM radio terminal, an application installed on

a computer or any compatible equipment for GSM

able to carry out such a task. Communication takes

place in the VeSMpME direction (located at the site

of the remote client or mobile) towards the

VeSMpMgr (VeSMp Manager) server connected to

the SMSC. VeSMpMgr recovers VeSMp Protocol

Data Unit (VeSMpPDU) which is a conventional

SMS in a rough state. It takes it up to the level of

VeSMp daemon (VeSMpd) which treats it and

extracts VeSM. An applicative entity called VeSMp

Application Entity (VeSMpAE) analyzes the VeSM

and extracts the command and its arguments from

them. The result is then given to a VeSMp agent

(VeSMpAg) which makes the match with

information of management in VeSMpMIB. The

command is then given according to the context of

local network management to the stack of TCP/IP

(SNMP) or OSI protocol (CMIP). The same

VeSMpAg recovers the result of the command,

journalizes it in VeSMpMIB and gives a copy to the

VeSMpMgr.

Figure 2: Diagram of interaction of the management of the

VeSMp protocol.

VeSMp (VERY SHORT MESSAGE PROTOCOL): AN SMS-BASED PROTOCOL FOR PROCESS MONITORING

AND SYSTEM REMOTE ADMINISTRATION

The latter communicates with the SMSC which then

notifies VeSMpME of the result (success or failure)

of its request. The UML diagram of interaction

shows by the figure 2 hereafter illustrates the

collaboration between entities involve in the

execution of the algorithm.

The figure 3 below materializes the architecture

of deployment of VeSMp protocol.

Figure 3: Architecture of deployment VeSMp of protocol.

VeSMp is an appraisable regular expression

valuable by a context-free grammar (Pugolles pp

981-995, 2002). With this expression, we associate

semantic actions to bring out a parser of SMS which,

as output, produces an executable instruction on the

command line system. We can by this confirm that a

VeSM is a SMS of command. This means an SMS

which originate real actions at the system level.

3.4 The VeSMp Protocol’s Security

Model

The VeSMp’s security model associates three

parameters which are: telephone number, login and

password. It realizes three other supplementary

commands: LGN (login), PWD (password) and LGT

(Logout). These commands allow respectively to

instruct the VeSMp manager to evaluate the user

account composes by the login and the password.

This is illustrated by the instruction:

##lgn AccountLogin#pwd AccountPwd#.

LGT allows ending an opened session by the

instruction:

##lgt#.

The first VeSM is used for authentication

purpose. We call it the authentication VeSM. It

permits to open a session. The session has a

duration. This duration corresponds to the waiting

delay of a VeSM by the VeSMp manager. If during

this period of time no VeSM is detected, the VeSMp

manager ends an opened session. If not, it

reinitializes the session’s counter. At the reception

of the authentication VeSM, a VeSMpAE checks

that the phone number is authorized if not it rejects

the request. Then it checks if the account (login and

password) extract from VeSM is an account of the

domain: this is the identification and authentication

process of the user in the directory. At any time, the

Administrator can explicitly ends a session thanks to

the command LGT.

The contracted form of VeSM messages is

equally a level of security. This mode of codification

of VeSMp instructions allows hiding the correct or

real syntax and name of system commands of

process remotely invoked.

4 DISCUSSIONS: INTEGRATION

OF VESMP WITH STANDARDS

SNMP AND CMIP

VeSMp is a system protocol for remote

administration designed to be used in a company to

improve the procedure of system administration and

thus to increase the productivity of the company

while making available the systems resources, no

matter the geographical location of the

Administrator. In this part, we show how this

protocol is integrated into the international standard

of system and network management like CMIP of

OSI and SNMP of TCP/IP.

System monitoring is in the key idea of the

VeSMp model. Its operation requires the presence of

TCP/IP and/or OSI protocol. The exchanges are

done between layers 7 (Application) of OSI model

and 4 (SM-AL Short Message Application Layer) of

SMS model (Pons, 2001). The data of system

monitoring are brought up at the level of layer 7 -

application of OSI model by the intermediary of an

application entity. It is at this level that are

elaborated, treated and taken the decisions of

management. As we mentioned earlier, system

monitoring is done by the logical entity VeSMpAE

which in OSI model corresponds to a System

Management Application Entity (SMAE) that

generally must carry out these services. All the

information of management are memorized in our

management database VeSMpMIB. This

corresponds to the Management Information Base

(MIB) of models CMIP of OSI or SNMP of TCP/IP.

The parser aims to translate VeSM into a system

command. The execution of this command now will

call upon the mechanisms of CMIP or SNMP

management, all depending on the underlying

protocol of management concerned. It also plays the

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part of the supervising authorities of association

ensured by the Association Control Service Element

(ACSE) of the OSI model. This comparison is

recapitulated in table 1.

Table 1: Illustration of the integration of VeSMp protocol

into standard CMIP of OSI and SNMP of TCP/IP.

VeSMp CMIP SNMP

GSM protocols ROSE

our synopsis SMASE

Parser ACSE

VeSMpMIB MIB MIB

VeSMpAg SNMP Agent

VeSMpMgr SNMP Manager

VeSMpAE SMAE

VeSMpME

VeSMpCl

VeSMpAEl

Notes about table 1: ROSE stands for Remote

Operation Service. For VeSMp, ROSE is based on

GSM protocols for SMS management. Our synopsis

defines the syntax and the semantic of the

information of management transferred by a SMS

(SMASE). The parser plays the role of services of

association (ACSE). The concepts VeSMpME,

VeSMpCl and VeSMpAEl have no immediate

correspondence. For more details about

abbreviations, please see appendix.

After having described the VeSMp protocol, we

present its model of management and its

architecture. We also showed how it is integrated

into the standard models of management like SNMP

and CMIP protocol. By referring to the summary of

the table 1 above, we can invariably use the same

terms to refer to similar concepts, whether it is

VeSMp, SNMP or CMIP.

5 CONCLUSION AND

PERSPECTIVES

We are interested in the construction of effective

solutions based on lower cost technologies: SMS.

These are used in companies for tasks of notification

or information in various fields (Wikipedia, 2006),

(SMS Tutorial, 2007). We have proposed the

VeSMp protocol, an original alternative of

exploitation of the SMS service for monitoring

systems processes and remote administration. It is a

SMS-based protocol of communication. It allows the

system administrator from the notification of an

event or incidental system, to intervene on its system

in the second which follows, no matter the

geographical location. In this way he permanently

remains in contact with the system or the corporate

network. VeSMp makes it possible to render

services to systems and corporate networks available

at any time and place. The VeSMp protocol

therefore makes it possible for companies to draw

from the real advantages while making it possible

for the administrators to remain virtually present in

their companies thanks to their GSM terminal.

VeSMp is a simple protocol of communication like

telnet (Postel and Reynolds, 1983).

In its current version, VeSMp uses the

association of three parameters: telephone number,

association allows the authentication of the

telephone number that emits the VeSM request, the

authentication and the identification of the

administrator to the system. It actually realizes five

commands in addition to the possibility to invoke

real system commands to perform administration

tasks: (1)

cmd (command), (2) rtn (return), (3) lgn

(login), (4)

pwd (password) and (5) lgt (Logout).

We are studying a strategy that permits to guarantee

the confidentiality and the integrity of VeSM. This

will consist of giving answer to the question: how to

integrate the cryptography into a VeSMp message.

We know that network management actions need

to be undertaken in near-real time scales. At this

level, a certain number of questions remain currently

hanging: what happens if VeSMp does not succeed?

How to insure the reliability of the protocol? What

happens if the SMS service is slow in delivering the

messages? The SMS message can be delay by the

congestion or even by the fact that the recipient is

temporally out of range from the base station. This

returns within the framework of the quality of

service (QoS) considerations within our protocol:

treatment of the errors, management and fault

tolerance, guarantee of success of a command,

interruption of a running command, incident

management and denial of service (DOS). Due to the

noticeable limitations that GSM puts on the amount

of data that can be gotten as feedback, another

improvement consists in giving to the command rtn

the possibility of providing a more detailed feedback

code: is the command successfully executed? Which

machine returns the feedback message? The

specifications of the ping command (Packet INternet

Groper) which is a benchmark for the administration

is certainly going to inspire us in this idea.

The extension of this paper will concern the

implementation, experimentation, and comparison of

the VeSMp against other available solutions such as

VeSMp (VERY SHORT MESSAGE PROTOCOL): AN SMS-BASED PROTOCOL FOR PROCESS MONITORING

AND SYSTEM REMOTE ADMINISTRATION

telnet or OpenView. We are developing a VeSMp-

based network administration tool: VeSMp

Network Monitor (VeSMp NetMon) intended for

the network monitoring and administration of the

“Ecole Nationale Supérieure Polytechnique”. It must

be a portable tool based on open solutions like Java

to guarantee the independence of the platform. In the

medium term, our research will improve the quality

of service offered and in the long-term we hope to

make of VeSMp a standard protocol of system and

network remote administration.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people contributed to reviewing this paper. It

was a wonderful experience to discuss particular

ideas with them. We are grateful to Dr. Guillaume

Koum Dissake and Pr. Jean-Claude Derniame who

reviewed the entire paper. Special gratitude goes to

all members of LABORIMA and to our students

Fritz Ekwogue, Yacoubou Mohamadou and

Maïramou for experimenting with the VeSMp

protocol.

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APPENDIX

 VeSMp: Very Short Message Protocol.

 VeSMpMIB: VeSMp Management Information

Base.

 VeSMpAg: VeSMp Agent.

 VeSMpMgr: VeSMp Manager.

 VeSMpAE: VeSMp Application Entity.

 VeSMpME: VeSMp Management Entity.

 VeSMpCl: VeSMp Client.

 VeSMpAEl: VeSMp Application Element.

 ROSE: Remote Operation Service Element.

 SMASE: Simple Management Service Element.

 MIB: Management Information Base.

 SMAE: System Management Application Entity.

 ACSE: Association Control Service Element.

 CMIS/CMIP: Common Management Information

Service/Protocol.

 SNMP: Simple Network Management Protocol.

WINSYS 2007 - International Conference on Wireless Information Networks and Systems