I am excited to share that I have successfully completed my Bachelor of Science at the University of Udine with a thesis focused on Argos-Mesh, a decentralized mesh networking project.
Thesis Overview#
The main goal of this work was to design, implement, and evaluate a mesh network capable of resilient and secure communication. The study focused on the use of BATMAN, ALFRED, and WireGuard protocols to handle:
- Routing between nodes
- Data distribution across the mesh
- Secure communication via encrypted channels
Mesh networks, thanks to their decentralized structure, offer versatile and resilient solutions, but they also present significant challenges in scalability and certificate management.
Implementation and Methodology#
The thesis explored the behavior of Argos-Mesh in both virtualized and real-world scenarios, analyzing how the growth in node count affects:
- Packet exchange volume
- Routing stability
- Overall network performance
Two main test approaches were used:
- Single-channel network simulation – modeling a complete mesh on one communication channel
- Multi-segment network simulation – mimicking real-world deployments across multiple physical segments
Special attention was given to certificate exchange between nodes, implementing three strategies:
- Local Retrieve – certificates exchanged directly within a local node
- Trusted Retrieve – certificates retrieved through trusted peers
- Direct Retrieve – direct point-to-point certificate exchange
Results and Analysis#
The thesis provides a detailed report on the performance and effectiveness of Argos-Mesh under varying conditions. Key findings include:
- Network scalability is heavily influenced by the certificate distribution strategy
- Routing stability remains robust in moderately large networks, but may degrade in very dense deployments
- Decentralized approaches for certificate exchange show promising potential for optimizing large-scale mesh networks
Conclusions#
This study highlights how decentralized certificate management can be further refined to support large-scale mesh networks, providing insights for future enhancements of Argos-Mesh. The results of this research offer a solid foundation for building resilient, secure, and efficient decentralized networks.
