Inter-domain security for Mobile IPv6

Mobile IPv6 is a macro-mobility "universal" solution and is only adapted to the mobile's movements within its own administrative domain. As Mobile IPv6 is expected to be the basis for third generation cellular phone networks, a solution for inter-domain security is required. What is needed is that the visited domain should be able to authenticate the mobile to grant it access and the mobile should identify securely the visited domain so that its communications are protected in an appropriate manner. To solve those inter-domain security problems, new concepts known as AAA (authentication, authorization, accounting) were defined by the IETF. The IETF is currently defining the Diameter protocol to support those three functions in a Mobile IPv4 environment. Today's difficulty is to adapt the Diameter protocol to Mobile IPv6. After introducing the Mobile IPv6, IPsec (IP security), IKE (Internet key exchange) and Diameter protocols, this paper presents our solution and an alternative for adapting Diameter to Mobile IPv6, and gives a comparison. Both of them were published as IETF drafts in December 2001 at the Salt Lake City meeting.