Mobile IP
Mobile IP (or MIP) is an Internet Engineering Task
Force (IETF) standard communications protocol that is
designed to allow mobile device users to move from one
network to another while maintaining a permanent IP ad-
dress. Mobile IP for IPv4 is described in IETF RFC
5944, and extensions are dened in IETF RFC 4721.
Mobile IPv6, the IP mobility implementation for the
next generation of the Internet Protocol, IPv6, is de-
scribed in RFC 6275.
1 Introduction
The Mobile IP allows for location-independent routing of
IP datagrams on the Internet. Each mobile node is identi-
ed by its home address disregarding its current location
in the Internet. While away from its home network, a
mobile node is associated with a care-of address which
identies its current location and its home address is as-
sociated with the local endpoint of a tunnel to its home
agent. Mobile IP species how a mobile node registers
with its home agent and how the home agent routes data-
grams to the mobile node through the tunnel.
2 Applications
In many applications (e.g., VPN, VoIP), sudden changes
The so-called Care of Address is a termination point of a
in network connectivity and IP address can cause prob-
tunnel toward a MH, for datagrams forwarded to the MH
lems. Mobile IP was designed to support seamless and
while it is away from home.
continuous Internet connectivity.
Mobile IP is most often found in wired and wireless envi-
ronments where users need to carry their mobile devices
across multiple LAN subnets. Examples of use are in
roaming between overlapping wireless systems, e.g., IP
over DVB, WLAN, WiMAX and BWA.
Mobile IP is not required within cellular systems such as
3G, to provide transparency when Internet users migrate
between cellular towers, since these systems provide their
own data link layer handover and roaming mechanisms.
However, it is often used in 3G systems to allow seamless
IP mobility between dierent packet data serving node
(PDSN) domains.
1
3 Operational principles
The goal of IP Mobility is to maintain the TCP connection
between a mobile host and a static host while reducing
the eects of location changes while the mobile host is
moving around, without having to change the underlying
TCP/IP.[1] To solve the problem, the RFC allows for a
kind of proxy agent to act as a middle-man between a
mobile host and a correspondent host.
A mobile node has two addresses a permanent home
address and a care-of address (CoA), which is associated
with the network the mobile node is visiting. Two kinds
of entities comprise a Mobile IP implementation:
A home agent (HA) stores information about mobile
nodes whose permanent home address is in the home
agents network. The HA acts as a router on a mobile
hosts (MH) home network which tunnels datagrams
for delivery to the MH when it is away from home,
maintains a location directory (LD) for the MH.
A foreign agent (FA) stores information about mo-
bile nodes visiting its network. Foreign agents also
advertise care-of addresses, which are used by Mo-
bile IP. If there is no foreign agent in the host net-
work, the mobile device has to take care of getting
an address and advertising that address by its own
means. The FA acts as a router on a MHs visited
network which provides routing services to the MH
while registered. FA detunnels and delivers data-
grams to the MH that were tunneled by the MHs
HA
Foreign agent care-of address: the address of a for-
eign agent that MH registers with
co-located care-of address: an externally obtained
local address that a MH gets.
A Mobile Node (MN) is responsible for discovering
whether it is connected to its home network or has moved
to a foreign network. HAs and FAs broadcast their pres-
ence on each network to which they are attached. They
are not solely responsible for discovery, they only play a
part. RFC 2002 specied that MN use agent discovery
2 5 DEVELOPMENT

to locate these entities. When connected to a foreign net- their Combination) is available under the entry "A perfor-
work, a MN has to determine the foreign agent care-of- mance comparison of Mobile IPv6, Hierarchical Mobile
address being oered by each foreign agent on the net- IPv6, fast handovers for Mobile IPv6 and their combi-
work. nation", from the ACM SIGMOBILE Mobile Computing
A node wanting to communicate with the mobile node and Communications Review (MC2R), Volume 7, Issue
uses the permanent home address of the mobile node as 4, October, 2003.
the destination address to send packets to. Because the
home address logically belongs to the network associated
with the home agent, normal IP routing mechanisms for- 5 Development
ward these packets to the home agent. Instead of forward-
ing these packets to a destination that is physically in the Enhancements to the Mobile IP technique, such as Mo-
same network as the home agent, the home agent redi- bile IPv6[4] and Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6)
rects these packets towards the remote address through dened in RFC 5380,[5] are being developed to im-
an IP tunnel by encapsulating the datagram with a new IP prove mobile communications in certain circumstances
header using the care of address of the mobile node. by making the processes more secure and more e-
When acting as transmitter, a mobile node sends packets cient. HMIPv6 explanation can be found at Hierarchical-
directly to the other communicating node, without send- Mobile-IPv6.
ing the packets through the home agent, using its per- Fast Handovers for Mobile IPv6 is described in IETF
manent home address as the source address for the IP RFC 5568.
packets. This is known as triangular routing or route
optimization (RO) mode. If needed, the foreign agent Researchers create support for mobile networking with-
could employ reverse tunneling by tunneling the mobile out requiring any pre-deployed infrastructure as it cur-
nodes packets to the home agent, which in turn forwards rently is required by MIP. One such example is Interactive
them to the communicating node. This is needed in net- Protocol for Mobile Networking (IPMN) which promises
works whose gateway routers check that the source IP ad- supporting mobility on a regular IP network just from the
dress of the mobile host belongs to their subnet or discard network edges by intelligent signalling between IP at end-
the packet otherwise. In Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6), reverse points and application layer module with improved qual-
tunneling is the default behaviour, with RO being an op- ity of service.
tional behaviour. Researchers are also working to create support for mo-
In scenarios when both sides of communication are mo- bile networking between entire subnets with support from
bile nodes, communicating via Mobile IP solutions adds Mobile IPv6. One such example is Network Mobility
additional overhead that decreases ecient packet pay- (NEMO) Network Mobility Basic Support Protocol by
loads. As a solution, In 2012 researchers developed a the IETF Network Mobility Working Group which sup-
method [2] to decrease the size of overhead in situations, ports mobility for entire Mobile Networks that move and
so that more payloads can be transferred in each IP packet to attach to dierent points in the Internet. The protocol
in the discussed scenarios. In the proposed method, the is an extension of Mobile IPv6 and allows session conti-
tunnel manager is changed to act as a DNS, so that send- nuity for every node in the Mobile Network as the net-
ing MN addresses are no longer required. work moves.

4 Performance 5.1 Changes in IPv6 for Mobile IPv6

A set of mobility options to include in mobility mes-

A performance evaluation of Mobile IP, LISP, RINA and
other similar initiatives that try to x the incorrect IP
addressing architecture, can be found in this study also
available in this technical report. [3]
A performance evaluation of Mobile IPv6, carried out by
NEC Europe, can be found at the ACM Digital Library,
under the entry "A simulation study on the performance
of mobile IPv6 in a WLAN-based cellular network",
from the Elsevier Computer Networks Journal (CNJ), spe-
cial issue on The New Internet Architecture, September
2002.
Additionally, a performance comparison between Mobile
IPv6 and some of its proposed enhancements (Hierarchi-
cal Mobile IPv6, Fast Handovers for Mobile IPv6 and
sages
A new Home Address option for the Destination Op-
tions header
A new Type 2 Routing header
New Internet Control Message Protocol for IPv6
(ICMPv6) messages to discover the set of home
agents and to obtain the prex of the home link
Changes to router discovery messages and options
and additional Neighbor Discovery options
Foreign Agents are no longer needed

6 Denition of terms
Home network The home network of a mobile device
is the network within which the device receives its
identifying IP address (home address).
Home address The home address of a mobile device is
the IP address assigned to the device within its home
network.
Foreign network A foreign network is the network in
which a mobile node is operating when away from
its home network.
Care-of address The care-of address of a mobile device
is the network-native IP address of the device when
operating in a foreign network.
Home agent A home agent is a router on a mobile nodes
home network which tunnels datagrams for delivery
to the mobile node when it is away from home. It
maintains current location (IP address) information
for the mobile node. It is used with one or more
foreign agents.
Foreign agent A foreign agent is a router that stores
information about mobile nodes visiting its net-
work. Foreign agents also advertise care-of-
addresses which are used by Mobile IP.
Binding A binding is the association of the home ad-
dress with a care-of address.
7 See also
Handover
Roaming
Mobility management
GPRS Tunneling Protocol
Vertical hando
Host Identity Protocol (HIP)
Identier/Locator Network Protocol (ILNP)
Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6)
8 References
[1] Internet Protocol
[2] H.Zolfagharnasab. Reducing Packet Overhead in Mobile
IPv6 International Journal of Distributed and Parallel Sys-
tems (IJDPS), Vol.3, No.3, May 2012
3
[3] Vatche Ishakian, Joseph Akinwumi, Flavio Esposito and
Ibrahim Matta. On supporting mobility and multihoming
in recursive internet architectures, Journal of Computer
Communications. Volume 35, Issue 13, July, 2012. Pages
1561-1573
[4] X.Prez-Costa and H.Hartenstein. A Simulation Study on
the Performance of Mobile IPv6 in a WLAN-Based Cel-
lular Network Elsevier Computer Networks Journal, spe-
cial issue on The New Internet Architecture, September
2002
[5] X.Prez-Costa, M.Torrent-Moreno and H.Hartenstein. A
Simulation Study on the Performance of Hierarchical Mo-
bile IPv6 In Proceedings of the International Teletrac
Congress (ITC), Berlin, Germany, August 2003.
9 External links
RFC 2002 IP Mobility Support
RFC 6275 Mobility support for IPv6
RFC 5944 IP Mobility Support for IPv4, Revised
RFC 4721 Mobile IPv4 Challenge/Response Ex-
tensions
RFC 3024 Reverse Tunneling for Mobile IP
Inside Mobile IP
Protocols for Adaptive Mobile and Wireless Net-
working
Mobile IP explained (a tutorial)
Mobility Extensions for IPv6 (mext) IETF Working
Group Web site
Mobile IPv6 -- A short introduction by Holger
Zuleger
Linux Mobile IPv6 HOWTO on the Linux Docu-
mentation Project
D. Johnson, C. Perkins, J. Arkko. Mobility Support
in IPv6. RFC 6275. June 2011
J. Arkko, V. Devarapalli, F. Dupont. Using IPsec
to Protect Mobile IPv6 Signaling Between Mobile
Nodes and Home Agents. RFC 3776. June 2004
The CDG wiki page for Mobile IP
4 10 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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