Transient tunneling for dynamic home addressing on mobile hosts

• US 7,554,967 B1
• Filed: 09/15/2000
• Issued: 06/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: WSOU Investments, LLC (WSOU Holdings, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent USA, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Salgarelli, Luca, Ramjee, Ramachandran, Varadhan, Kannan, Thuel, Sandra R, La Porta, Thomas F
• Primary Examiner(s): Trost, IV, William
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shand, Roberta A
• Application Number:
  US09/662,531
• Time in Patent Office: 3,210 Days
• Field of Search: 370/310, 370/310.2, 370/313, 370/328, 370/329, 370/330, 370/331, 370/340, 370/341, 370/349, 370/392, 370/401, 370/409, 370/437, 370/466, 370/467, 455432-440
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 60/00 Affiliation to network, e.g. registration; Terminating affiliation with the network, e.g. de-registration
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/26 Network addressing or numbering for mobility support
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/04 Network layer protocols, e.g. mobile IP [Internet Protocol]

Abstract

Portable and/or mobile IP hosts desiring to connect to the Internet can dynamically acquire a home address and other configuration information through DHCP when powering up in a foreign network. A two-stage configuration procedure is used. First, the mobile host uses the M-IP protocol to establish contact with an addressing element, referred to as a bootstrapping agent, that is usually co-located with a M-IP Home Agent, and that allocates a temporary home address for the mobile host. The temporary address is used to create a temporary tunnel. Second, this temporary tunnel is used as the communication vehicle over which standard DHCP transactions take place. The present invention is thus arranged to use a) M-IP as the signaling mechanism for reaching the home network and dynamically allocating a temporary home address for the mobile host; and b) DHCP to allocate a permanent home address and any other configuration state for the mobile host.

Claims

1. A method for configuring a portable and/or mobile host that powers up in a foreign network to connect to the Internet, comprising the steps of

creating a bootstrapping agent in the home network that works cooperatively with a Mobile IP home agent to initially allocate a temporary home address to said portable and/or mobile host that powers up in the foreign network,

the portable and/or mobile host using the Mobile IP protocol to contact said Mobile IP home agent and request said bootstrapping agent to allocate said temporary home address to said portable and/or mobile host while the mobile host is in the foreign network;

using in the foreign network, said temporary home address to create a temporary tunnel between a foreign agent associated with said portable and/or mobile host and said Mobile IP home agent, wherein said temporary tunnel is used to communicate configuration information including a permanent home address allocated by a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DCHP) server between the portable and/or mobile host and its home network, when the portable and/or mobile host powers up in the foreign network, thereby allowing the portable and/or mobile host that powers up in a foreign network to connect to the Internet; and

replacing said temporary tunnel with a new tunnel between said mobile IP home agent and said foreign agent using said permanent home address, thereby allowing a mobile host without an IP home address to connect to the Internet when powering up in the foreign network.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said foreign agent is co-located with said mobile host.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said foreign agent is located on a device that is external to said mobile host and resides in said foreign network.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein said bootstrapping agent is arranged to assign IP addresses from an address pool of private addresses.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein private addresses are in the format 10*.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said bootstrapping agent is arranged to assign IP addresses from an address pool of public addresses.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein a DHCP client located on said portable and/or mobile host is used to generate messages requesting said configuration information from the DHCP server via said temporary tunnel.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein said messages generated by said DHCP client are modified at said portable and/or mobile host to have a format consistent with a DHCP relay.

9. A method for enabling a mobile host without an IP home address while in a foreign network, to connect to the Internet when powering up in the foreign network, comprising the steps of:

obtaining a temporary IP home address for said mobile host powering up in the foreign network without an IP home address from a temporary IP address source accessible through a bootstrapping agent that works cooperatively with a mobile IP home agent,

establishing a transient tunnel between said mobile IP home agent and a mobile IP foreign agent associated with said mobile host while the mobile host is in said foreign network, using said temporary IP home address,

acquiring, via said transient tunnel, configuration parameters including a permanent IP home address from a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server located in the home network of said mobile host, and

replacing said transient tunnel with a new tunnel between said mobile IP home agent and said mobile IP foreign agent using said permanent IP home address, thereby allowing a mobile host without an IP home address to connect to the Internet when powering up in the foreign network.

10. A method for configuring a mobile host that powers up in a foreign network, comprising:

setting up a temporary IP tunnel via the Mobile IP protocol to connect said mobile host to its home network while the mobile host is in the foreign network,

using an IP broadcasting protocol over said temporary IP tunnel so that said mobile host can discover a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) addressing server in its home network;

using the DHCP protocol to communicate addressing and configuration information between said addressing server and said mobile host while the mobile host is in the foreign network; and

replacing said temporary IP tunnel with a new tunnel, thereby allowing a mobile host without an IP home address to connect to the Internet when powering up in the foreign network.

11. In a system arranged to use an IP tunnel to relay via the Internet communication packets that are destined to a mobile host from a home server in said host'"'"'s home network to a foreign server when said host is in a foreign network, wherein the establishment of said IP tunnel requires said home server and foreign server to know a permanent IP home address of said mobile host, a method for configuring said mobile host when it powers up in said foreign network without said IP home address, comprising the steps of

obtaining a temporary IP home address for said mobile host from an IP address source accessible thorough said home server,

establishing a transient tunnel between said home server and said foreign server using said temporary IP home address while the host is in the foreign network,

acquiring, via said transient tunnel, permanent configuration parameters including the permanent IP home address from a DHCP server located in a region served by said home server while the host is in the foreign network,

replacing said transient tunnel with a new tunnel between said home server and said foreign server using said permanent IP home address.