Gerardo Giaretta

Bootstrapping mobile IPv6 using EAP

Mobile IPv6 is the protocol defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to enable nodes to roam between IP subnets. Its specification requires the mobile node to be configured with at least a Home prefix to discover a home agent address, a home address and the cryptographic materials needed to protect mobile IPv6 signaling. In a real deployment perspective, manual configuration is cumbersome and a dynamic bootstrapping solution is needed. This is referred to as the mobile IPv6 bootstrapping problem. This paper describes a solution where mobility and network access services are provided by the same entity. Our idea is to use the AAA infrastructure so the authorization and configuration of the mobility service are both performed during the network access authentication phase. Our solution is based on the extensible authentication protocol (EAP) that usually serves to authenticate users. We solve the bootstrapping problem by using existing extensions of some EAP authentication methods to carry mobile IPv6 parameters from the home domain to the mobile node. This solution has been implemented in Telecom Italia laboratory.

Performance Analysis of a Network-Based Protocol for Localized IP Mobility Management

In this paper a new protocol for IP mobility management is described, which follows a network-based approach and fulfils the requirements of optimized usage of radio spectrum and minimum involvement of the terminal. The performance of this solution has been analyzed using the OMNeT++ simulator and a comparison with other well known protocols, like mobile IPv6 and hierarchical MIPv6, has been carried out. Finally the results of the simulations are presented and discussed in terms of handoff latency, data transport overhead and signaling volume over the air interface.