MOBILE IP

Presented by:-
Praveen Kumar
Final year (8th sem)
(Elect. & Comm. Engg.)
 Overview

• What is Mobile IP?

• Mobile IP Operation
• Mobile Addressing Details
• Foreign Agent Discovery
• Agent Registration
 What is Mobile IP?
• IETF standard protocol

• Designed to allow mobile users

to move from one network to
another while maintaining their
permanent IP address.

• Described in IETF RFC 3344

 Mobile IP Operation

• What is the Biggest Challenge?

– Biggest challenge is allowing a host to
retain its address without requiring routers
to learn host-specific routes.

• Mobile IP solves the problem by:

– Allowing a computer to hold two addresses
simultaneously
• A permanent and fixed PRIMARY ADDRESS
• And a SECONDARY ADDRESS that is
temporary
Mobile IP
 Mobile IP Entities
• Mobile Node (MN)
– The entity that may change its point of attachment
from network to network in the Internet
• Detects it has moved and registers with “best” FA
– Assigned a permanent IP called its home address to
which other hosts send packets regardless of MN’s
location
• Since this IP doesn’t change it can be used by long-lived
applications as MN’s location changes
• Home Agent (HA)
– This is router with additional functionality
– Located on home network of MN
– Does mobility binding of MN’s IP with its COA
– Forwards packets to appropriate network when MN
is away
• Does this through encapsulation (IP in IP Tunneling)
 Mobile IP Entities
• Foreign Agent (FA)
– Another router with enhanced functionality
– If MN is away from HA the it uses an FA to
send/receive data to/from HA
– Advertises itself periodically
– Forward’s MN’s registration request
– Decapsulates messages for delivery to MN
• Care-of-address (COA)
– Address which identifies MN’s current location
– Sent by FA to HA when MN attaches
– Usually the IP address of the FA
• Correspondent Node (CN)
– End host to which MN is corresponding (eg. a web
server)
 Foreign Agent Discovery

• Uses ICMP router discovery mechanism

– Routers periodically send ICMP router advertisement messages
• Hosts may send an ICMP router solicitation to prompt for the
advertisement
– A Mobile may also multicast to the all agents group (224.0.0.11)
• If the router acts as a foreign agent then in its reply it will
append a mobility agent extension
• The message type is the same as for ICMP router
advertisements except that if the datagram length specified in
the IP header is greater than the length specified in the ICMP
router discovery message, then the extension is present
 Communicating with a Foreign Agent

• Foreign Agent may use its address as the

secondary address for the Mobile Host
• How can the foreign agent communicate with
the Mobile host when it does not have a
unique address?
– The Mobile host supplies its hardware address
during the registration.
– The foreign agent will use the hardware address
and home IP address to communicate with the
Mobile host
 Communicating with Home Network

• When a host is at a foreign site the home agent can

intercept datagrams that arrive from external
sources and forward them without problems
• A special case arises when the Mobile is at a foreign
site and hosts from the home network attempt to
forward datagrams to the Mobile unit
– Those datagrams will be sent via direct delivery and not be
intercepted by the home agent
– Therefore the home agent must arrange to intercept the
ARP requests on behalf of the Mobile host which acts as a
proxy
 Agent Registration

• Before it can receive datagrams at the foreign

location a Mobile host must register with an
agent
• Registration is done via UDP
• The procedure allows a host to:
– Register with a foreign agent
– Register with the home agent to arrange
forwarding
– Renew a registration that is due to expire
– Deregister with the home agent
 Mobile IP Tunneling

Across Internet
 Security in Mobile IP

• Authentication can be performed by all

parties
– Only authentication between MN and HA is
required
– MD5 is the default
• Replay protection
– Timestamps are mandatory
• HA and FA do not have to share any
security information.
THANK YOU