Abstract
Mobility support for Internet devices is quite important for consumer electronics. The number of the handโheld devices is growing quickly. However, there are not enough IP addresses for the number of the rapidly growing devices in the AllโIP generation. Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) was therefore adopted to solve these problems. Our purposed structure is based on IEEE 802.11. However, IEEE 802.11 has a serious security drawback. Further, from the Internet Service Providers' point of view, accounting is a potential problem. A mechanism combining Mobile IPv6 and AAA based on IEEE 802.11 to overcome these problems is essential.
Both Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and IPv6 support IP security (IPsec) when data packets are exchanged across the IP network. IPsec operates at the IP layer. It can support system authentication and authorization, However, it lacks a system accounting function. Therefore ISPs cannot establish correct billing for their services. This is the reason why we chose to combine the wireless network and AAA functions.
In this paper, the AAA mechanism is used to protect security, with the architecture having authentication, authorization, and accounting functions. We will discuss the benefits of AAA and state the reason why we choose to combine AAA with the mobility architecture.โCopyright ยฉ 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.