Mobile-IP and Proxy-MIP Timer Considerations

This section is intended to provide a brief explanation of the considerations for lifetime, idle, and absolute timer settings that must be understood when setting up a system in a mobile IP or proxy mobile IP environment. In the Cisco ASR 5500 platform, there is not an explicitly defined MIP lifetime. The MIP lifetime is determined through various timers settings in the configuration and through radius attributes returned in an Access-Accept message.

This chapter contains the following topics:

Call Flow Summary

The following steps describe the call flow as regards the timers that affect a call initiated by the Mobile Node (MN).
  1. PPP Negotiation: A data call is initiated by beginning PPP. Once PPP is successfully established, the system will understand if the call is a mobile IP call or simple IP call. At this point, the system is not aware of the subscriber username and will use settings from the default subscriber template in the source context or the context defined by the "aaa default-domain subscriber" setting in the global configuration.
  2. FA Agent Advertisement: Once the system has determined the call is a Mobile IP call, the FA will send a Router Advertisement message with a Mobility Agent Advertisement extension. The Mobility Agent Advertisement includes a Registration Lifetime field. The value of this field will come from one of two places. The FA service has a configurable setting named "advertise reg-lifetime". The default value for this setting is 600. A setting in the default subscriber template called "timeout idle" is also a candidate. The default value for this setting is 0 (null). The smaller of these two configurable parameters is used as the Registration Lifetime value. Leaving the settings at the defaults will result in an advertised lifetime of 600.
    Advertise Reg-Lifetime in FA Service Timeout Idle in Subscriber Template Resulting Advertised Registration Lifetime
    600 0 600
    600 900 600
    3600 1200 1200
    The device will receive the agent advertisement and send a MIP Registration Request. The device uses the advertised registration lifetime value as the requested MIP lifetime.
  3. AAA Authentication and MIP Registration Request: The next step in the MIP process will be to authenticate the user at the FA. It is at this stage where a failure condition can be introduced.

    If the Access-Accept message does not return any values related to timers, the subscribers MIP Registration Request is sent on to the HA.

    If the Access-Accept message does include an attribute relating to Idle or Absolute timer the FA will evaluate the requested lifetime from the device to the value returned by the AAA. The FA will treat any Idle or Absolute timer value returned by the AAA as a maximum value and as such:

    • If the requested MIP lifetime from the device is less-than than the returned radius attribute, the lifetime value is considered valid and the MIP Registration Request is forwarded on to the HA.
    • If the requested MIP lifetime from the device is greater-than the returned radius attribute, the requested lifetime value is considered to be too long. The FA will send a MIP Registration Reply to the device with a response code of Error 69 - Requested Lifetime Too Long . In the reply message, the FA will populate the Lifetime value with the maximum acceptable lifetime. The device may send a new MIP request with this new lifetime value.
    MIP Lifetime Requested by Device Idle-Timer Value in Access-Accept Resulting MIP Lifetime Request in MIP Request to HA
    3600 (Not Returned) 3600
    3600 7200 3600
    3600 1800 Failure - Error 69
  4. HA Process MIP Request: The HA has now received a Mobile IP Registration request forwarded by the FA on behalf of the device. The MIP request contains the username and the requested lifetime (as well as other parameters). The HA will take this lifetime request and compare it to the configurable parameters associated with the HA service and associated configurations. The HA will use the username to determine which subscriber template to use for subscriber specific settings.

    The parameters the HA uses to determine the MIP lifetime are the requested lifetime, the "reg-lifetime" setting in the HA service and the "timeout idle" setting in the subscriber template. If the requested MIP lifetime is lower it is be sent back to the mobile; if the MIP lifetime is higher the system sends back an RRQ accept with the lifetime set to 5 seconds less than the lower of the idle or absolute timeout for the user.

    MIP Lifetime Requested by Device Timeout Idle/Absolute in Subscriber Template Reg-Lifetime Value in HA Service MIP Lifetime Returned to Mobile Device
    3600 0(default) 7200 3600
    3600 7200 1805 1800
    3600 1705 3600 1700
    PDSN/FA HA
    Advertise Reg-Lifetime in FA Service Timeout Idle/Absolute in Subsc. Template (Source Context) Idle-Timer Value in Access-Accept Timeout Idle/Absolute in Subscriber Template(HA Context) Reg-Lifetime Value in HA Service Resulting Lifetime Value sent to Mobile Device
    600 0(default) (not returned) 0(default) 7200 600
    1800 900 7200 7200 1805 900
    3600 1200 3600 1705 3600 1200
    1500 3600 1500 0(default) 3600 1500
    3600 0(default) (not returned) 0(default) 2405 2400
    3600 0(default) (not returned) 2005 3600 2000
    65534 0(default) 7200 0(default) 3600 Lifetime Too Long

Dealing with the 'Requested Lifetime Too Long' Error Code

In some configurations, a roaming partner may return an "Idler-Timer" attribute in an access-accept whose value is smaller than what a carrier may have configured for its own subscribers. This will result in a "Requested Lifetime Too Long" error message being returned to the device. There are several ways to correct this. One is to use a setting in the FA service configuration. Using the "no limit-reg-lifetime" in the FA service configuration will tell the FA service to allow the MIP lifetime to be greater than the Idle or Absolute timers. The FA will not send Error 69 and continue to process the call. The lifetime value in the MIP Request sent to the HA will still be what was determined in Phase 2.

Controlling the Mobile IP Lifetime on a Per-Domain Basis

The system does not support the configuration of the MIP lifetime timer on per- domain (context) basis. However, a domain-wide lifetime timer can be achieved by configuring the idle-timeout attribute for the default subscriber for each domain.


Important

Mobile IP lifetime settings can be controlled on a per-domain basis only in deployments for which the idle timeout attribute for individual subscriber profiles is not used during operation.

In this configuration, the value of the registration lifetime sent by the system in Agent Advertisements is selected by comparing the configured FA Agent Advertisement lifetime setting, and the idle and/or absolute timeout settings configured for the domain\'s default subscriber. If the value of the idle and/or absolute timeout parameter is less than the Agent Advertisement lifetime, then the system provides a registration lifetime equal to 5 seconds less than the lowest timer value.

If the idle timeout attribute is configured in individual subscriber profiles, per-domain lifetime control is not possible. In this case, the registration lifetime configured for the FA must be the lower of the two values.


Important

Commands used in the examples in this section provide base functionality to the extent that the most common or likely commands and/or keyword options are presented. In many cases, other optional commands and/or keyword options are available. Refer to the Command Line Interface Reference for complete information regarding all commands.

The following is an example CLI command sequence used to configure the Mobile IP lifetime on a per-domain basis. 
configure 
      context <aaa_context_name> 
            subscriber default 
                  ip context-name <abc> 
                  exit 
            subscriber name <ptt.bigco.com> 
                  timeout idle <3605> 
                  ip context-name <abc> 
                  exit 
            subscriber name <bigco.com> 
                  timeout idle <7205> 
                  ip context-name <abc> 
                  exit 
            domain <ptt.bigco.com> default subscriber <ptt.bigco.com> 
            domain <bigco.com> default subscriber <bigco.com> 
                  end 
configure 
      context <ha_context_name> 
            subscriber default 
            exit 
      ha-service <ha> 
            idle-timeout-mode normal 
            reg-lifetime <7200> 
            end 
configure 
      context <fa_context_name> 
            fa-service <fa> 
                  advertise reg-lifetime <7200> 
                  end

In the example above, two domains (ptt.bigco.com and bigco.com) are configured. The default subscribers are defined for the two domains respectively. The desired operation requires a Mobile IP lifetime of 1 hour (3600 secs) for the ptt.bigco.com domain, and a lifetime of 2 hours (7200 secs) for the bigco.com domain.

Whenever a subscriber session belonging to the ptt.bigco.com domain arrives, the system uses a Mobile IP lifetime timer value equal to 5 seconds less than the idle timeout configured for the default subscriber because the configured value is less than the registration lifetime value configured for the Agent Advertisement. 5 seconds less than the configured value of 3605 seconds equals 3600 seconds which meets the desired operation.

Whenever a subscriber session belonging to the bigco.com domain arrives, the system uses the configured registration lifetime value as the Mobile IP lifetime in Agent Advertisements because it is less than the configured idle timeout in the default subscriber\'s profile.

As a general rule, the registration lifetime value on the agent must be configured as the highest Mobile IP lifetime that is desired for a subscriber. (In the above example, it would be the subscriber bigco.com.)

Another important factor to consider is that the idle timeout value should be reset on receipt of a renewal request. To support this operation, the system provides the idle-timeout-mode configurable in the HA service. The following modes are supported:

  • normal: Resets the idle timeout value on receipt of Mobile IP user data and control signaling

  • aggressive: Resets the idle timeout value on receipt of Mobile IP user data only (this is the default behavior)

  • handoff: Resets the idle timeout value on receipt of Mobile IP user data and upon inter-AGW handoff or inter access technologies

The following optional modifier is also supported:

  • upstream-only: Only upstream user data (data from the mobile node) resets the idle timer for the session. This is disabled by default.