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• H. Peine (2002)
  Run-Time Support for Mobile Code
  Doctoral (PhD) thesis, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany,
  ISBN 3-925178-93-7.

• H. Peine (2002)
  Application and Programming Experience with the Ara Mobile Agent System
  Software -- Practice and Experience, 32(6):515-541 (PDF, 25 pages, 168K).

  Abstract:
  We describe a mobile agent application for distributed searching of the global Usenet network, implemented on top of the Ara mobile agent system. After short overviews of Ara and the Usenet, the application is presented in detail, beginning with some critical thoughts on mobile agent applications in general. The function and performance of the search application is described then, demonstrating the advantage of using mobile agents over an equivalent stationary implementation of the same application under certain conditions, and also discussing the limits of such conditions. This is followed by descriptions of the language to express the search queries and of the search algorithms employed. The application presentation closes with a critical discussion. The paper then concludes with some observations about mobile agent programming in general.

• H. Peine (1998)
  Security Concepts and Implementation for the Ara Mobile Agent System
  7th IEEE Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises, June 17-19th, Stanford University, USA. (gzipped PostScript, 7 pages, 41K).

  Abstract:
  We describe the security architecture of the Ara mobile agent platform, after reviewing the relevant aspects of comparable systems. The Ara model features few principals, a simple authentication and encryption API, and a simple but highly customizable authorization scheme. One system may contain many virtual places, each establishing a domain of logically related services under a common security policy governing all agents at this place. Agents are equipped with allowances limiting their resource accesses, both globally per agent life time and locally per place. Various aspects of the implementation of this model are discussed, and finally the situation and limitations of Ara and other systems are summarized.

• H. Peine (1997)
  Ara - Agents for Remote Action
  In William R. Cockayne and Michael Zyda: Mobile Agents: Explanations and Examples, with CD-ROM, Manning/Prentice Hall, ISBN 1-884777-36-8.

  This is an earlier, abridged, and corrected version of the report An Introduction to Mobile Agent Programming and the Ara System listed below.

• H. Peine (1997)
  A Plea for Language-Independent Mobile Object Systems
  Position paper accepted for participation in the 3rd ECOOP Workshop on Mobile Object Systems, Jyväskylä, Finland, June 9-10. (gzipped PostScript, 2 pages, 17K).

• H. Peine and T. Stolpmann (1997)
  The Architecture of the Ara Platform for Mobile Agents
  In Kurt Rothermel, Radu Popescu-Zeletin (Eds.): Proc. of the First International Workshop on Mobile Agents MA'97 (Berlin, Germany), April 7-8th. Lecture Notes in Computer Science No. 1219, Springer Verlag, ISBN 3-540-62803-7. (gzipped PostScript, 12 pages, 41K).

  Reprinted in
  Mobility: Processes, Computers, and Agents
  ed. by D. Milojicic, F. Douglis und R. Wheeler, pp. 474-483, Addison-Wesley and the ACM Press 1999, ISBN 0-201-37928-7.

  Abstract:
  We describe a platform for the portable and secure execution of mobile agents written in various interpreted languages on top of a common run-time core. Agents may migrate at any point in their execution, fully preserving their state, and may exchange messages with other agents. One system may contain many virtual places, each establishing a domain of logically related services under a common security policy governing all agents at this place. Agents are equipped with allowances limiting their resource accesses, both globally per agent lifetime and locally per place. We discuss aspects of this architecture and report about ongoing work.

• H. Peine (1997)
  An Introduction to Mobile Agent Programming and the Ara System
  ZRI report 1/97, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. (gzipped PostScript, 67 pages, 197K)

  A good starting point for people new to Ara and possibly mobile agent programming in general. This assumes very little prerequisite knowledge, so expert readers might want to only skim through its initial sections. The report introduces mobile agents and the Ara system, regards potential applications, and proceeds to a fairly complete, but nonformal description of the Ara API, subsequently demonstrated on a larger example of a WWW searching agent. The report closes with some discussion of the Ara implementation and selected aspects of mobile agents in general.

• There are two technical notes on special aspects of Ara available on-line, one on adapting a given language interpreter to Ara, and another on security breaches in the current Ara distribution.

• The on-line Ara help pages contain a glossary of Ara terms, descriptions of the executable programs, most prominently the Ara shell 'arash', plus references for the various Ara application programming interfaces.

• H. Peine and T. Stolpmann (1997)
  Ara Installation and Configuration Guide