Chapter -4 --> Mobile IP

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Why there is a need of Mobile IP?

Not Possible, Because as soons as you leave your home network, you cannot receiver your packet,
because your computer is configured to that particular network and you cannot move that network.

If you want to establish the Mobile IP --- Several Requirement that need to be satisfy.

1) Compatibilty - Computers running TCP/IP and connected to the Internet is Huge. A new
standard(Mobile IP) has to put and make changes in the network protocol already is use. So, If we want
to use Mobile IP, it has to be integrated into the existing Operating System.

2) Transparency - Mobility should remain 'invisible' for many higher layer protocols and application. So
visible thing in mobile IP - lower bandwidth and some interruption.

3) Scalability and efficiency - Introducing a new mechanism to the internet, must not jeoparadize its
efficiency.

Enhancing IP, for mobility must not generate too many new message packet flooding in the network.

As every platform is using Mobility (car, plane, truck) many of them using IP implementation. It is crucial
for mobile IP to be scalable over a large no. of participants in the whole network.

4) Security - Mobility poses many security problem as it is open connection. Minimum requirement - all
messages related to management of mobile IP should be authenticated. IP layer only guaranteed that IP
address of the receiver is correct. There is no way to find the sender. There is a problem of Fake IP
address or other attacks.

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Entities and Terminologies of Mobile IP

#Node, Network, Forigen, COA

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1) Mobile Node (MN) - It is an end system or router that can change its point of attachment to the
internet using Mobile IP.

2) Correspondent Node (CN) - At least one partner is needed for communication with MN. CN could be
sender or receiver.

3) Home Network - Is the subnet the MN belongs to with respect to its IP address.

4) Foreign Network - It is the current subnet the MN visits, and which is not the home network.

5) Foreign Agent (FA) / Home Agent (HA) - Provide several services to MN, during its visit to the foreign
network. This agent could be a gateway router, it connects differnt network, in our case it is connecting
home network and foreign network.

FA can have Care of Address (COA) acting as tunnel endpoint and forwarding packet to the MN.

6) Care of Address (COA) - defines the current location of MN (Temp IP address).

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Working of Mobile IP

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CN - Sender and ////// MN - Receiver

1) A CN node wants to send IP packets to the MN.

One of the requirements of MObile IP was to support hiding the mobility of MN.

CN doesnt know anything about MN current location, so it will send the packet as usual to the IP address
of the MN.

Packet has CN - Source Address and MN - Destination Address.

The internet not have any information regarding current location of MN, so it will route the packet to
the network of MN - Home Network.

The HA now intercepts the packet, knowing that MN is currently not in its home network.

2) The packet is not forwarded to the home network, but encapsulated and tunneled to the COA.

A new header is put is front of old IP header, showing the COA as new destination and HN as Source of
Encapsulated Packet.

3) The FA now decapsulate the packet, removes the additional header and fowards teh original packet
with CN as source and MN as destination to the MN.

4) Now MN sends the packet as usual with its own fixed IP address as source and CN address its
destination.

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When MN moves from his home network, it is very important for him to find FA, in order to get
COA(care of Address - Temporary Address - to get network and services inside foreign network)without
COA it is not possible to use anything inside foreign network.
How does MN discover the Foreign Agent ?

- Agent Advertisment

- Agent Solicitation

* Agent Advertisment -

FA and HA advertise their presence periodically using this special agent advertisment message. These
advertisment message can be seen as a beacon broadcast into the network subnet. This message is
comprises with two things - upper part of this message is - ICMP(Internet Control Message Protocol) and
lower part is mobility extension.

Upper Part Attributes - ICMP (Image from google).

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1) Type = Set to 9.

2) Code = 0 or 16 -> 0 =If the agent also routes traffic from non-mobile node.

16 = If it does not router anything other than mobile traffic.

3) Checksum = Specifically meant for Forward Error Correction.

4) Lifetime = denotes the length of time this advertisment is valid.

5) Prefrence Level - The level for each address help a node to choose the router that is most eager to get
a new mobile node.
6) #Address - Address list (number of address advertisied with this packet).

Lower Part Attribute - Mobility Extension

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1) Type = Set to 16

2) length = depends on the number of COA provided.

3) Registration Lifetime - agent can specify the maximum lifetime in seconds a node can request during
registration.

4)

R - registration bit - if a registration with this agent is required, then this bit is going to be on and off.

B Busy Bit- If the agent is too busy to accept the new registration, it can set the B bit to 1 or 0.

F and H - Foreign and Home Agent - denotes if the agent offers services to the mobile node.

M and G - Minimal and Generic Routing Encapsulation

T - Reverse Tunneling - If a mobile node wants to send something to Home Agent then he can use this
reverse tunnel.

* Agent Solicitation
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If no agent advertisment are present or in an interval of specific time, and this MN does not get any
COA, that MN can now go for agent solicitation.

MN will here now broadcast with agent solicitation request packet, that I'm in the foregin network,
please get me some FA.

Care must be taken to ensure that these solicitation messages do not flood in the network.

MN can send out three solicitation messages, one per second, as soon as it enters to a new network.

If a MN does not receiver an answer to its solicitation, then it must decrease the rate of solicitation, to
avoid flooding.

After these steps, the MN eventually gets FA, and he will get COA from it.

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MN Registers with HA.

So, when the MN gets FA, he will get COA (temp IP), there is a need for MN to provide this COA (temp
IP) to HA, as any packet send to MN, first recevied by HA, so if HA doesn't know where my MN is? he is
not able to forward any packet intended to MN, therefore MN has to register with HA, after getting COA
from FA.

Having received a COA from FA, the MN has to register with HA. The main reason of this registration is
to inform the HA, the current location, for correct forwarding of packets.
there are two different ways for registering depending on the location of COA.

1) The COA is at FA

2) The COA is Co-located (means it is at HA) - Works similar to DHCP.

COA is at FA --> Registration Request and a corresponding Registration Reply comes from HA.

Registration Request Looks like - (Google Search - Mobile IP Registration Request Packet)

Attributes inside the Registration Request

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1) Type = 1 -> Registration Request.

2) S Bit - MN can specify if it wants the HA to retain prior mobility bindings (MN Home IP Address +
Current COA).

3) B Bit - indicates MN also wants to receive broadcast packet which have been received by HA in the
home network.

3) D - Decapsulation of the packet.

4) M and G --> what kind of encapsulation you want to use -> M - Minimal Encapsulation and G - Generic
Encapsulation.

5) T - Reverse Encapsulation.
6) r and x --> set to 0.

7) Lifetime - validity of registration Process.

8) HA and HN - permanent IP address of MN.

9) COA - Care of Address --> MN current Location.

Attributes of registration reply from HA

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1) Type = 3 Registration Reply

2) Code = 0 and 1 ( 0 - Registation Accepted, 1 - Registration Accepted, but mobility binding is not
supported).

Other attributes are similar to the Registration Request.

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Minimal Encapsulation and Generic Routing Encapsulation Packet Format.

Generic Routing Encapsulation Attributes -

1) C - Checksum
2) R - Routing Fields

3) K - Key Field - For authentication

4) S - Sequence Number

rec - recursion control - Calling of address is controlled over here.

resv - reserved = 0.

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Route Optimization (Trinangular Routing Problem)

Scenario -

A japenese and a german meet at a location at - Africa.

Both want to use their laptop for exchanging the data, both running mobile IP.

If the japenese send the data packet to german, his computer will send the packet to the HA of the
german. (from africa to germany) .

The HA of germany now encapsulates teh packets and tunnels them to the COA (temp IP) of the german
laptop (Germany to Africa).

Now the german will communicate with Japenese (africa to africa)

Optimization Problem - Although the computers might be only meters away, the packet have to travel
around the world. --> Triangular Routing.

CN -- HA Japense to HA German

HA -- COA/MN Germany to Africa

MN -- CN Africa to Africa

Solution - Optimize the route to inform the CN of the current location, that can be available by the
routing table. The CN can learn the location by caching --> Binding Cache.