IT351 - Mobile & Wireless Computing

Tutorial_8

1. Explain when mobile IP is needed

2. Why and where is encapsulation needed for mobile IP?
3. Explain packet flow if two mobile nodes communicate and both
are in foreign networks. What additional routes do packets take if
reverse tunnelling is required?
4. What is meant by tunnelling? Explain how tunnelling works for
mobile IP using IP-in-IP. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages
of this method.
5. Name the inefficiencies of mobile IP regarding data forwarding
from a correspondent node to a mobile node. What are
optimizations and what additional problems do they cause?
6. What advantages does the use of IPv6 offer for mobility? Where
are the entities of mobile IP now?
7. What are general problems of mobile IP regarding security?
8. Why are special protocols for the support of micro mobility on the
network layer needed?
9. What is the basic purpose of DHCP? Name the entities of DHCP.
10.How can DHCP be used for mobility and support of mobile IP?
11.Name the main differences between multi-hop ad hoc networks and
other networks. What advantages do these ad hoc networks offer?
12.Why is routing in multi-hop ad hoc networks complicated, what are
the special challenges?

Answers
1) If users only want to access other server, e.g., for WWW browsing, mobile IP
is not needed. After obtaining a new IP address via DHCP a node can act as
client. However, as soon as a node wants to offer a service, it should keep its
IP address. Otherwise it is difficult to find it or other additional mechanisms
(DDNS) are required to map, e.g., a node name to the nodes address
2) Encapsulation is required between the HA and the COA, which could be
located at an FA or at the MN. This is needed to make mobility transparent
the inner data packet should not notice data transfer through the tunnel, thus
TTL remains untouched.
3) If MNa and MNb are both in foreign networks attached to FAa and FAb the
packet flow is as follows. MNa sends packets to MNb via the Internet to HAb
(actually, MNa sends to MNbs address, the packets are only intercepted by
HAb). HAb encapsulates the packets to FAb, which then forwards the packets
to MNb. If reverse tunnelling is required, the packet flow is as follows: MNa
sends its packets via FAa through the reverse tunnel via HAa and the Internet
to HAb. HAb then forwards the packets through the tunnel to FAb, which in
turn forwards the packets to MNb.
4) Tunnelling simply means that a packet is encapsulated at tunnel entry and
decapsulated at tunnel exit. The packet is thus payload of the outer packet
inside the tunnel. IP-in-IP encapsulation is the simple case of using IP for
encapsulating other IP packets. This is simple because all devices already
know how to insert payload into an IP packet. Bandwidth is wasted by
transferring the same field several times.
5) Triangular routing via CN-HA-FA-MN is inefficient. One optimisation is the
binding update at the CN. A CN can enter the COA of a MN in its routing
table. This lets the CN directly send its data to the MN. This solution reveals
the current location of the MN and is not transparent anymore (the CN now
knows that the MN is mobile, furthermore, it knows the location via the
COA).
6) Many mobility supporting function are already integrated in IPv6. An explicit
FA is not needed any more, all routers are capable of agent advertisements,
tunnelling, forwarding of data, setting up security associations. Authentication
is built-in as well as optimisation functions.
7) Mobile IP does not increase security compared to IP, on the contrary. The only
additional security related function is the authentication of MN and HA.
However, if MN and HA, together, want to attack an FA, nothing can prevent
them. Firewalls and mobile IP do not really go together. Either reverse
tunnelling or tunnelling in general drills a hole in the firewall or MNs can not
operate in foreign networks. The firewall has to be integrated into the security
solution.

8) Mobile IP causes too much overhead during registration if used for very
mobile nodes (nodes, changing networks quite frequently). Furthermore, all
registration messages cross the Internet from the foreign to the home network
(plus registrations reveal the current location). Micro-mobility supporting
approaches basically insert another layer of hierarchy to offload some of the
complexity from the HA (compare with HLR, VLR).
9) DHCP is a mechanism for configuring nodes. Parameters acquired via DHCP
are, e.g., IP address, default gateway, DNS server, subnet mask etc. Without
DHCP all parameters must be configured manually. A DHCP server provides
DHCP information, a relay can forward data into different LANs.
10) DHCP can be used to allocate COAs in mobile IP.
11) Ad-hoc networks in general do not require an infrastructure to operate (they
can be connected to an infrastructure). Multi-hop ad-hoc networks additionally
do not require that all nodes can receive each other. Nodes may forward
transmissions for other nodes. Advantages are the lower required transmission
power (its just like whispering into the neighbours ear instead of shouting out
loud) and the increased robustness (failure of single nodes can be tolerated).
12) Routing is complicated because of frequent topology changes, different
capabilities of the nodes, varying propagation characteristics. Furthermore, no
central instance can support routing.