Mobility Management :
Introduction, IP Mobility,
Optimization, IPv6
By Mrs Dipali K Bhole
While mobile IP was originally designed for
IP version 4, IP version 6 makes life much
easier. Several mechanisms that had to be
specified separately for mobility support
come free in IPv6 One issue is security with
regard to authentication, which is now a
required feature
for all IPv6 nodes. No special mechanisms as
add-ons are needed for securing mobile IP
registration.
IPv6
Every IPv6 node can send binding updates to
another node, so the MN can
send its current COA directly to the CN and
HA. These mechanisms are an integral
part of IPv6. A soft handover is possible with
IPv6. The MN sends its new
COA to the old router servicing the MN at the
old COA, and the old router encapsulates
all incoming packets for the MN and forwards
them to the new COA.
Altogether, mobile IP in IPv6 networks requires
very few additional mechanisms of a CN, MN, and
HA. The FA is not needed any more. A CN only has
to be able to process binding updates, i.e., to
create or to update an entry in the routing cache.
The MN itself has to be able to decapsulate
packets, to detect when it needs a new COA, and
to determine when to send binding updates to the
HA and CN. A HA must be able to encapsulate
packets. However, IPv6 does not solve any
firewall or privacy problems. Additional
mechanisms on higherlayers are needed for this
Mobile IPv6 Features (2)
No Foreign Agent
◦ In Mobile IPv4, an MN registers to a foreign
node and borrows its’ address to build an IP
tunnel so that the HA can deliver the packets to
the MN. But in Mobile IPv6, the MN can get a
new IPv6 address, which can be only used by
the MN and thus the FA no longer exists
◦ IPv6 Address auto-configuration: MN can obtain
a CoA in foreign network without any help of
foreign agent
More Scalable : Better Performance
◦ Less traffic through Home Link
◦ Less redirection/re-routing (Traffic Optimization)
Mobile IPv6 Features (3)
Bi-directional tunneling mode
◦ Does not require for the CN to support Mobile
IPv6
◦ Use of Reverse tunneling (for ingress filtering)
Route Optimization (RO) mode
◦ Requires to register the MN’s current binding at
the CN
◦ Uses a new type of IPv6 routing header
Type-2 routing header = home address (Dest Addr =
MN’s CoA)
◦ Shortest communications path
◦ Eliminates congestion at the MN’s HA and home
link
◦ Impact of any possible failure of the HA or
networks on the path to or from it is reduced
Mobile IPv6 Features (4)
Dynamic Home Agent Address Discovery
◦ Allows a MN to dynamically discover the IP
address of a home agent on its home link
◦ ICMP Home Agent Address Discovery Request
Message
Destination address: Home Agent anycast address
for its own home subnet prefix
◦ Reply message
HA list (with preferences) in the home link
Each HA maintains the home agent lists
IP micro-mobility support
Mobile IP exhibits several problems regarding the
duration of handover and the
scalability of the registration procedure.
Assuming a large number of mobile
devices changing networks quite frequently, a
high load on the home agents as
well as on the networks is generated by
registration and binding update
messages. IP micro-mobility protocols can
complement mobile IP by offering
fast and almost seamless handover control in
limited geographical areas.
Consider a client arriving with his or her laptop at the customer’s premises.
The home agent only has to know an entry point to the customer’s network,
not the details within this network. The entry point acts as the current location.
Changes in the location within the customer’s network should be handled
locally to minimize network traffic and to speed-up local handover. The basic
underlying idea is the same for all micro-mobility protocols: Keep the frequent
updates generated by local changes of the points of attachment away from the
home network and only inform the home agent about major changes, i.e.,
changes of a region. In some sense all micro-mobility protocols establish a hierarchy.
However, the debate is still going on if micro-mobility aspects should
really be handled on the IP layer or if layer 2 is the better place for it. Layer 2
mobility support would comprise, e.g., the inter access point protocol (IAPP) of
802.11 WLANs or the mobility support mechanisms of mobile
phone systems
Cellular IP
Cellular IP (Valko, 1999), (Campbell, 2000) provides local
handovers without
renewed registration by installing a single cellular IP
gateway (CIPGW) for each domain, which acts to the
outside world as a foreign agent Inside the cellular IP domain,
all nodes collect routing information for accessing MNs based
on the origin of packets sent by the MNs towards the CIPGW.
Soft handovers are achieved by allowing simultaneous
forwarding of packets destined for a mobile node along
multiple paths. A mobile node moving between adjacent cells
will temporarily be able to receive packets via both old and
new
base stations (BS) if this is supported by the lower
protocol layers.
Concerning the manageability of cellular IP, it has
to be noted that the approach has a simple and
elegant architecture and is mostly self-configuring.
However, mobile IP tunnels could be controlled
more easily if the CIPGW was integrated into a
firewall, but there are no detailed specifications in
(Campbell,
2000) regarding such integration. Cellular IP
requires changes to the basic mobile IP protocol
and is not transparent to existing systems. The
foreign network’s routing tables are changed
based on messages sent by mobile nodes.
Basic architecture of
cellular IP
Advantage
● Manageability: Cellular IP is mostly self-configuring, and integration of
the
CIPGW into a firewall would facilitate administration of mobility-related
functionality. This is, however, not explicitly specified in (Campbell, 2000).
Disadvantages
● Efficiency: Additional network load is induced by forwarding packets on
multiple paths.
● Transparency: Changes to MNs are required.
● Security: Routing tables are changed based on messages sent by mobile
nodes. Additionally, all systems in the network can easily obtain a copy of
all packets destined for an MN by sending packets with the MN’s source
address to the CIPGW.
Hawaii
HAWAII (Handoff-Aware Wireless Access Internet
Infrastructure, Ramjee, 1999) tries to keep micro-mobility
support as transparent as possible for both home agents
and mobile nodes (which have to support route
optimization).
Its concrete goals are performance and reliability
improvements and support for quality of service
mechanisms.
On entering an HAWAII domain, a mobile node
obtains a co-located COA and registers with the HA.
Additionally, when moving to another cell inside the
foreign domain, the MN sends a registration request to
the new base station as to a foreign agent
Basic architecture
of HAWAII
thus mixing the concepts of co-located COA and
foreign agent COA.
The base station intercepts the registration
request and sends out a handoff
update message, which reconfigures all routers
on the paths from the old and
new base station to the so-called crossover
router (step 4). When routing has
been reconfigured successfully, the base station
sends a registration reply to the
mobile node, again as if it were a foreign agent.
Advantages
● Security: Challenge-response extensions
are mandatory. In contrast to
Cellular IP, routing changes are always
initiated by the foreign domain’s
infrastructure.
● Transparency: HAWAII is mostly transparent
to mobile nodes.
Disadvantages
● Security: There are no provisions regarding
the setup of IPSec tunnels.
● Implementation: No private address
support is possible because of colocated
COAs.
Hierarchical mobile IPv6
(HMIPv6)
HMIPv6 provides micro-mobility support by
installing a mobility anchor point (MAP),
which is responsible for a certain domain and
acts as a local HA within this domain for
visiting MNs
The MAP receives all packets on behalf of the MN, encapsulates
and forwards them directly to the MN’s current address (link COA,
LCOA).
As long as an MN stays within the domain of a MAP, the globally
visible COA (regional COA, RCOA) does not change.
A MAP domain’s boundaries are defined by the access routers
(AR)
advertising the MAP information to the attached MNs. A MAP
assists with local handovers and maps RCOA to LCOA. MNs
register their RCOA with the HA using a binding update. When a
MN moves locally it must only register its new
LCOA with its MAP.
The RCOA stays unchanged. To support smooth handovers
between MAP domains, an MN can send a binding update to its
former MAP.
Basic architecture of
hierarchical mobile IP
Advantages
● Security: MNs can have (limited) location privacy
because LCOAs can be hidden.
● Efficiency: Direct routing between CNs sharing the
same link is possible
Disadvantages
● Transparency: Additional infrastructure component
(MAP).
● Security: Routing tables are changed based on
messages sent by mobile nodes. This requires strong
authentication and protection against denial of
service attacks. Additional security functions might be
necessary in MAPs
The main driving factors behind the three
architectures presented here are
efficiency, scalability, and seamless
handover support. However, as security will
be one of the key success factors of future
mobile IP networks, first approaches
adding this feature exist
Macro Mobility : MIPv6,
FMIPv6,
IP-based mobility management techniques can be implemented in
several layers of the protocol stack, such as the network layer, transport
layer, and application layer.
IP-based mobility protocols can be used to take care of mobility for 3G-
and 4G-based systems. MIPv4 (Mobile IPv4) (Perkins, 2002b) and its
several variants, namely MIP-RO(MIP with Route Optimization), MIP-RR
(MIP with Regional Registration) (Perkins, 2002c), MIP-LR (MIP with
Location Registers) (Jain et al., 1999), MIPv6 (Johnson et al., 2004), and
MOBIKE (S. Eronen, 2006), are a few of the network layer mobility
protocols that were defined by the IETF.
Cellular IP (Campbell et al., 2000), HAWAII (Handoff
Aware Wireless Access Internet Infrastructure) (Ramjee et al., 2000),
Proxy MIPv6 (Gundavelli et al., 2008), and IDMP (Intra Domain Mobility
Protocol) (Das et al., 2002) are the network layer
micromobility protocols suitable for intradomain mobility. Intradomain
mobility refers to a movement scenario in which the mobile’s movement
is confined to one administrative domain
Mobile IPv4
Mobile IP is a mechanism developed for the network layer
to support mobility (Perkins, 2002a).
Originally it was intended for travelers with laptops to
provide portability, and was later adopted
by the wireless community.
It supports transparency above the IP layer, including the
maintenance of active TCP connections and UDP port
bindings.
A mobile host is identified by a node identifier
such as a fixed IP (home IP address). When the mobile
host connects to a visited network that
is different from the one that its IP address belongs to, its
home network forwards packets to
the mobile.
A router (or an arbitrary node), which is usually known as the home
agent, on the user’s home network forwards the packets. There are two
different methods to deliver packets to
a mobile host when it is on a foreign network. With the first method, the
mobile host adopts a (temporary) IP address known as the care-of
address (CoA) and registers it with its home
agent.
When the home agent receives a packet for this user, it encapsulates the
packet in another IP packet with the care-of address as the destination
address and sends it to the foreign network (Perkins, 1996a,b).
Encapsulating a packet within another packet until it reaches the care-of
address is known as tunneling.
Note that encapsulation adds between 8 and 20 bytes of overhead,
which
can be significant for voice packets of this size.
MIP-LR
Mobile IP with Location Registers (MIP-LR)
avoids encapsulation of packets (Jain et al.,
1999)
and provides survivable features in the case
of failure of location registers. In MIP-LR,
each subnet
may contain a host that functions as a
visitor location register and/or a host that
functions as a
home location register. Each mobile host can be
served by multiple HLRs. Each VLR advertises
its presence on its local subnet using agent
advertisement messages similarly to Mobile IP.
When a
mobile host is located on its local subnet, it is not
registered at either the HLR or the VLR. When the
mobile moves to a foreign network, it obtains a
care-of address from the pool of addresses that the
VLR has. The mobile host registers with the foreign
VLR using the CoA it has obtained, which in
turn relays the registration to the mobile host’s HLR.
The HLR returns a registration reply containing
the allowed lifetime for this registration; the VLR records
the mobile host’s CoA and the lifetime
and forwards the reply to the mobile host. A
correspondent host wishing to send a packet to the
mobile host for the first time issues a query to the HLR,
which returns the mobile host’s CoA as well
as the remaining registration lifetime. The correspondent
host then sends the packet directly to the
mobile host’s CoA. The correspondent host caches a
binding for the mobile host’s CoA and uses this
binding for subsequent packets destined for the mobile
host
Mobile IPv6
Fast Mobile IPv6
While Mobile IPv6 takes care of session continuity during
handoff, by itself it lacks the ability
to provide the low-latency handoff and reduced packet loss
that are essential for many interactive applications such as
Voice over IP, gaming, and conferencing. Most of the handoff
delays observed in Mobile IPv6 are due to IP address
configuration and binding update delay when the home agent
is far away.
Fast Mobile IPv6 (FMIPv6) (Koodli 2008) proposes mechanisms
to reduce the handoff delay by way of localizing the binding
updates to the edges of the network, reducing the delay
due to IP address acquisition, and buffering at the edge
routers. This involves additional protocol exchange between
the mobile host, the current router (pAR), and the next access
router (nAR).
These mechanisms can be categorized into two
types of handover, namely predictive and reactive.
The FMIPv6 protocols work in conjunction with the
existing MIPv6 stack. Figure 2.16 shows the
interaction among several network elements. For
brevity, it does not reflect the MIPv6-related
signaling, however.
We now briefly describe the predictive operation of
FMIPv6. The mobile host sends a router solicitation
for a proxy (RtSolPr) message to its default access router
(pAR) in order to obtain information
related to the link layer addresses of the neighboring
access points discovered during the layer 2
scanning process, and the prefixes associated with the
neighboring access router (nAR). The current
access router (pAR) communicates with the nAR using
protocols such as Candidate Access Router
Discovery (CARD) (Liebsch et al., 2005) to obtain the
relevant information about the neighboring
network elements.
The pAR serving the user responds with a proxy router
advertisement (PrRtAdv) containing the requested
information, thus allowing the mobile host to perform
address autoconfiguration prior to its movement to the
new network. The host, after formulating a prospective
new CoA, sends a fast binding update (FBU) to its default
router instructing it to tunnel packets addressed to its
old CoA (oCoA) towards its new CoA (nCoA).
The access router currently serving the host (pAR)
starts buffering newly arriving packets with the oCoA as
their destination and exchanges handover initiate (HI)
and handover acknowledge (HAck) messages with the
nAR to initiate the process of the MH’s handover.
This HI/HAck message exchange can also serve for
validation of the nCoA already formed by the host. The
pAR responds to the MH with a fast binding
acknowledge (FBack) message on both links (old and
new) and starts the tunneling of buffered and arriving
data to the nCoA.
These packets are also buffered at the nAR until the
mobile arrives at the new point of attachment.
The MH, as soon as it attaches to the new link, transmits
a UNA (unsolicited network advertisement) to inform the
nAR of its presence. Buffered packets at the nAR can be
delivered immediately to the
MH on the new link.
In the reactive mode of FMIPv6, the FBU is
sent after the mobile connects to the new
network.
Thus, the FBU is routed through the nAR but is
processed at the pAR.
Unlike predictive handoff, the packets destined
for the previous address of the mobile are
forwarded to the nAR instead of being buffered
at the nAR.
Packet loss is minimized in predictive handover
owing to buffering at the nAR.
