mipagent(1M)
NAME
mipagent - Mobile IP agent
SYNOPSIS
/usr/lib/inet/mipagent
DESCRIPTION
The mipagent utility implements the Mobile IP home agent and
foreign agent functionality described in RFC 2002, IP Mobil-
ity Support. The term "mobility agent" is used to refer to
the home agent and foreign agent functionality collectively.
mipagent responds to Mobile IP registration and deregistra-
tion requests and router discovery solicitation messages
from a mobile node. Besides responding to external messages,
the mipagent utility also tasks on a periodic basis, such as
aging the mobility bindings and visitor entries and sending
agent advertisements. The mobility agent can also handle
direct delivery style reverse tunneling as specified in RFC
2344, Reverse Tunneling for Mobile IP. Limited private
address support for mobile nodes is also available. In addi-
tion, separate IPsec policies for registration requests,
replies, and tunnel traffic can be configured to protect the
datagrams associated with these between two mobility agents.
Run the mipagent daemon as root using the start-up script,
which has the following syntax:
example# /etc/init.d/mipagent [start|stop]
/etc/inet/mipagent.conf must be present before you start-up
the mipagent daemon. See mipagent.conf(4). At start up,
mipagent reads the configuration information from
/etc/inet/mipagent.conf. The mipagent daemon records a con-
tinuous log of its activities by means of syslog(). See
syslog(3C). You can use the LogVerbosity parameter in
/etc/inet/mipagent.conf to control the verbosity level of
the log.
The mipagent daemon can be terminated either by the script:
example# /etc/init.d/mipagent stop
or by the kill command.
Periodically while running, or if terminated or shutdown,
the mipagent daemon stores the following internal state
information in /var/inet/mipagent_state:
o a list of the mobile nodes supported as home agents;
o their current care-of addresses; and
o the remaining registration lifetimes.If the mipagent
utility is terminated for maintenance and restarted,
mipagent_state is used to recreate as much of the
mobility agent's internal state as possible. This
minimizes service disruption for mobile nodes that may
be visiting other networks. If mipagent_state exists,
it is read immediately after mipagent.conf when
mipagent is restarted. The format of mipagent_state is
undocumented since it is likely to change and programs
other than mipagent should not use it for any purpose.
A separate utility program mipagentstat is provided
for monitoring mipagent.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 The daemon started successfully.
-1 The daemon failed to start.
FILES
/etc/inet/mipagent.conf
Configuration file for Mobile IP mobility agent.
/var/inet/mipagent_state
File where private state information from mipagent is
stored.
/etc/init.d/mipagent [start|stop]
mipagent start-up script.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Availability | SUNWmipu |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
SEE ALSO
mipagentstat(1M), mipagentconfig(1M), syslog(3C),
mipagent.conf(4), attributes(5)
Montenegro, G., editor.RFC 2344, Reverse Tunneling for
Mobile IP. Network Working Group. May 1998.
Perkins, C. RFC 2002, IP Mobility Support. Network Working
Group. October 1996.
DIAGNOSTICS
The mipagent utility exits with an error if the configura-
tion file, mipagent.conf, cannot be read successfully. Upon
receiving a SIGTERM or SIGINT signal, mipagent cleans its
internal state, including any changes to the routing and ARP
tables, and exits.
NOTES
The foreign agent adds host- specific local routes to its
routing table for visiting mobile nodes after they are suc-
cessfully registered. If a visiting mobile node departs
without sending a de-registration message through the
foreign agent, these routing entries persist until the
mobile node's previous registration expires. Any packets
that arrive at the foreign agent for the departed mobile
node during this time, for example because the foreign agent
is also a router for the foreign network, will be lost. Sys-
tem administrators can configure foreign agents to accept
only short registration lifetimes. This will automatically
restrict the maximum duration for which a departed mobile
node will be temporarily unreachable.
Home and foreign agents dynamically add and delete IPsec
policies configured with a mobility agent peer. Those per-
taining to the tunnel are only added when the tunnel is
plumbed. At this time, IPsec tunnel policies must be identi-
cal in the forward and reverse direction. IPsec policies
pertaining to permiting registration requests on the home
agent are added to the IPsec policy file at init time as it
must be ready to receive these at any time. Otherwise, IPsec
policies pertaining to registration request and reply mes-
sages with a mobility agent peer are added as soon as they
are needed, and are not removed until all mobile nodes are
no longer registered with the mobility agent peer, at which
point the tunnels are torn down.
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