MOBILE NETWORK LAYER
Introduction
Mobile IP is a standard to enable mobility in the internet
The extensions needed for the internet to support the mobility of
hosts
A host sends an IP packet with the header containing a destination
address with other fields
The destination address determines the physical subnet of the
receiver
To avoid an explosion of routing tables, only prefixes are stored and
further optimizations are applied.
Requirements of Mobile IP
• Compatibility(Mobile IP has to be integrated into existing operating
systems or at least work with them). Mobile IP has to remain compatible
with all lower layers used for the standard, non-mobile, IP. Mobile IP must
not require special media or MAC/LLC protocols, so it must use the same
interfaces and mechanisms to access the lower layers as IP does.
• Transparency : higher layers should continue to work even if the mobile
computer has changed its point of attachment to the network. Mobility
should remain ‘invisible’ for many higher layer protocols and applications
• Scalability and efficiency:It is crucial for a mobile IP to be scalable over a
large number of participants in the whole internet, worldwide.
Requirements of Mobile IP
• Security Mobility poses many security problems. The
minimum requirement is that of all the messages related to
the management of Mobile IP are authenticated. The IP
layer must be sure that if it forwards a packet to a mobile
host that this host receives the packet. The IP layer can only
guarantee that the IP address of the receiver is correct.
There are no ways of preventing fake IP addresses or other
attacks.
Goal of a mobile IP
Supporting end-system mobility while
maintaining scalability, efficiency, and
compatibility in all respects with existing
applications and Internet protocols
Entities and terminology
Mobile node (MN):
A mobile node is an end-system or router that can change its point of attachment
to the internet using mobile IP.
The MN keeps its IP address and can continuously communicate with any other
system in the internet as long as link-layer connectivity is provided.
Mobile IP example
network
Correspondent node (CN) : partner for the MN (fixed or mobile node)
• Home network : subnet the MN belongs to with respect to its IP address
• Foreign network: current subnet the MN visits and which is not the home network.
• Foreign agent (FA) : provide several services to the MN during its visit to the
foreign network. The FA can have the COA (defined below), acting as tunnel
endpoint and forwarding packets to the MN. FA is implemented on a router for the
subnet the MN attaches to. It also provides security services.
• Care-of address (COA): the current location of the MN from an IP point of view.
Foreign agent COA : The COA could be located at the FA, i.e., the COA is an IP
address of the FA.
Co-located COA : The COA is co-located if the MN temporarily acquired an
additional IP address which acts as COA.
• Home agent (HA): The tunnel for packets toward the MN starts at the HA.
IP packet delivery
Step1:
CN does not need to know anything about the MN’s current location and sends the
packet as usual to the IP address of MN.
Step2:
A new header is put in front of the old IP header showing the COA as new
destination and HA as source of the encapsulated packet.
Step3:
The foreign agent now decapsulates the packet, i.e., removes the additional header,
and forwards the original packet with CN as source and MN as destination to the
MN
Step4:
The MN sends the packet as usual with its own fixed IP address as source and CN’s
address as destination
Packet delivery to and
from the mobile node
Agent discovery
One initial problem of an MN is to find a foreign agent
For identifying it, Mobile IP describes two methods for Agent Discovery
Agent advertisement
Agent solicitation
Agent advertisement: foreign agents and home agents advertise their
presence periodically using special agent advertisement messages
Internet control message
protocol (ICMP)
Agent solicitation
If no agent advertisements are present or the inter-arrival time is too high, and an
MN has not received a COA
A mobile node can send out three solicitations, one per second, as soon as it
enters a new network
If a node does not receive an answer to its solicitations it must decrease the rate of
solicitations exponentially to avoid flooding the network until it reaches maximum
interval between solicitations (typically one minute).
REGISTRATION:
• The main purpose of the registration is to inform the HA of the current location
for correct forwarding of packets. Registration can be done in two different ways
depending on the location of the COA.
i.If COA is at FA (LEFT DIAGRAM)
ii.If COA is colocated(RIGHT DIAGRAM)
Registration
Registration
of a mobile node via the
FA or directly with the HA
Registration request
• THANK YOU
