Secure XML-based Network Management in a Multi-source Context

This paper presents a secure architecture for network management in an XML environment. It introduces a distributed access control mechanism based on RBAC directly integrated into XML network configuration documents. It also provides confidentiality and authentication to the protocol both being deeply bound to the role concept of the RBAC model. It also uses an efficient key distribution mechanism based on multicast key management. A prototype implementing this security architecture is under development.