Mobility Support in

Internet and Mobile IP

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Why DHCP is not enough
 DHCP: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
 An Internet Protocol that allows host that does not have
an IP address to obtain an IP address and other
configuration information when it connects to a network
at a new location.
 Network to be connected can be for example an Ethernet
link
 Network to be connected should support DHCP protocol
 The mobile host should support DHCP protocol
 The configuration info that can be obtained via DHCP at
the new location includes:
 A registered IP address
 Subnet mask of the network
 Local DNS server IP addresses (primary and secondary IP
addresses), ...
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Example
 Assume we have DHCP support in CS department, Math
department and dormitories.
 Assume you have a laptop that has DHCP support installed.
 You don’t need to obtain an IP address from BCC in this case.
 You don’t need to bother with network configuration of your laptop.
 You will just plug-in your laptop to an Ethernet jack at CS department,
at Math department, or at your dormitory and you will be online
instantly and easily.
 You can move around between CS and Math departments and your
dormitory together with your laptop and get connected to the network.
 Disadvantage
 You have to reboot you computer whenever you connect it to a new network
(ethernet jack at a new location). All applcations have to be restarted.
 You laptop obtains a new IP address at the new location from DHCP server.
You can connect to outside world with this new IP address.
 However, Your friends wil not able to contact to you.
 Mobility is not seamless.

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DHCP does not provide seamless
mobility
 Since you obtain a new IP address a every new location,
applications has to be restarted
 Restart is not problem for web page access
 Restart is problem for telnet and ftp sessions and some other
network and TCP applications.
 Other people can not connect to you when you move to a
new location unless they learn your new IP address
 You have to call them and let your IP address at every move!!!
 DNS servers are not dynamic enough currently to update the
binding between your machine’s domain name (host name) and
its IP address. This binding will be stale when you move to a
new location. Your friend who wants to contact to you and uses
your machine’s host name, will have the old IP address returned
from the DNS server. Hence the packets (messages) he will sent
will be routed to your old IP address.

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Mobile IP Protocol Overview

2 3

Home Foreign 4 Mobile

Agent Agent
Internet Node

1 5

Correspondent
Host

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Mobile IP Functions
 Agent Discovery
 When a mobile node moves into a new subnetwork (or network),
lt has to discover the foreign agent in that network
 For this, mobile agents (home and foreign) advertise their
presence periodically using ICMP messages.
 Registration
 When a mobive moves to a new network and obtains a new
care-of-address there, ıt has to register that address with the
home agent (binding), so that home agent knows where to
forward the packets aimed for mobile.
 Registration should be secure
 Tunneling
 When packet aimed for mobile are intercepted by home agent,
they are forward to the current location (care-of-address) of the
mobile using a mechanism called Tunneling
 There are various forms of tunneling: IP-IP, Minimum
Encapsulation, GRE, etc.

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Example
 A correspondent host C wants to send an IP packet to a
mobile host M.
 It generated the IP packet so that the IP packet has destination
address equal to mobile’s home address
 The IP packet is send to the mobile’s home address
 Routers forward the packet using normal Internet routing
mechanisms to the home network of the mobile.
 Assume mobile is away from home network and currenty is located
in a foreign network. Hence mobile will not be able to receive
(capture) the packet that is sent to the mobile’s home network.
 A home agent located in the mobile’s home network will intercept
the packet aimed for mobile
 This interception is done with the help of proxy ARPing.
 Home agent will know the whereabouts of the mobile, if the mobile
has registered with the home agent previously.

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Example – continued.
 Home agent will encapsulate the IP packet using IP-IP
encapsulation (tunneling) method and will send the encapsulated
IP packet to the new location (care-of-address) of the mobile. The
new location is the foreign network that the mobile currently
resides in.
 The encapsulated IP packet will be transported to the care-of-
address of the mobile using normal Internet routing mechanisms.
 Care-of-address can be the IP address of a foreign agent or
the new IP address of the mobile at thew new location
obtained via methods like DHCP, etc. In this case the foreign
agent could be co-located at the mobile host.
 The holder of the care-of-address (a foreign agent) will receive the
encapsulated IP datagram, wil strip off the outer header
(decapsulate) and will forward the original IP packet to the mobile
host.
 The mobile host will receive the packet as it is coming from a
correspondent host directly without going through the home agent
(if foreign agent functionality is not co-located at the mobile host).

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 Mobile
IP-C: IP Address of Correspondent Host Host
IP-M: IP Adress of Mobile Host (home address of mobile)
C
IP-H: IP Address of Home Agent (care-of-address of mobile)
IP-F: IP Address of Foreign Agent.

Dst Src
IP Payload IP-M IP-C ….
Home Tunnel
Agent
H Dst Src Dst Src
IP Payload IP-M IP-C …. IP-F IP-H ….
Foreign
Inner Outer
Agent
IP Header IP Header
F
Other INTERNET An IP Header Fields
Dst Src Fields
IP Payload IP-M IP-C …. Ver HL TOS Total Length

IP Header Identification Flags Fragm. Offset

TTL Protocol Header Checksum

Correspondent
Src Address
Host
C Dest Address

Packet Transport from a Correspondent Host to a Mobile

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 Mobile
IP-C: IP Address of Correspondent Host Host
IP-M: IP Adress of Mobile Host C
IP-H: IP Address of Home Agent
IP-F: IP Address of Foreign Agent.

Src Dst
IP Payload IP-M IP-C ….
Home
Agent
H

Foreign
INTERNET Agent
F
Src Dst
IP Payload IP-M IP-C ….

Correspondent
Host
C

Packet Transport from a Mobile to a Correspondent Host

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Mobile Agent Discovery
 How a mobile node discovers the home and foreign agents
when it travels?
 Agents periodically broadcast their presence
(advertisement) on a link ( a wireless link – 802.11, or a
wired link – ethernet)
 These broadcasts are agent advertisement messages.
 A mobile node receiving the advertisement understand from
the IP addresses included in the advertisement:
 Whether it is in the home network or not?
 Whether it has moved to new location or not.
 This understanding is at the IP level
 (A mobile already knows that it has moved at the physical link
level if has moved).

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Mobile Agent Discovery

 An agent advertisement message is an

ICMP router advertisement message with
special extension.
 The special extension is called Mobility
Agent Extension.

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 Agent Advertisement Message
0 8 16 31
Ver HL TOS Total Length

Identification Flags Fragm. Offset TCP/IP Protocol Stack

in a Host
TTL Protocol Header Checksum IP Header
Src Address
Applications
Dest Address
Type Code Checksum ICMP Router
Advertisement TCP UDP
NAddr=0 Addr Size Lifetime Message
Type Length Sequence Number
Mobility Agent ICMP IGMP
Lifetime Flags Reserved Extension IP
Zero or more care-of-addresses
……….
ARP Link RARP
FLAGS
Layer
R: Registration requires (with the foreign agent)
B: Foreign agent is busy
H: The agent is home agent.
F: The agent is foreign agent
M: Minimum encapsulation
G: GRE encapsulation
V: Van Jacobson Header Compression

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