Patent ID: 7333453

Claim:
A method for supporting inter-NAT-domain handoff in a VPN by associating L2TP and mobile IP, which allows a mobile node to roam from an Intranet to a foreign network and implement a VPN by L2TP, wherein the Intranet has a VPN gateway and a home agent corresponding to the mobile node, the foreign network has a NAT gateway, an L2TP (PPP) tunnel passing the NAT gateway is established between the mobile node in the foreign network and the VPN gateway, and the VPN is formed by connecting the mobile node, NAT gateway and VPN gateway in series via the L2TP (PPP) tunnel, the method comprising the steps of: using the mobile node in the foreign network to add an MIP header to an original packet to be delivered to the Intranet, such that an MIP packet is generated to start the L2TP when it enters into the L2TP (PPP) tunnel; using the mobile node to add an L2TP header to the MIP packet for generating an L2TP packet and next sending the L2TP packet out of the mobile node, wherein the L2TP header has a source port limited to port ‘ 1701 ’; using the NAT gateway to translate the L2TP packet; using the VPN gateway to un-package the L2TP header of the L2TP packet translated for generating the MIP packet, record a source port in the L2TP header and forward the MIP packet to a home agent after being recorded; and using the home agent to un-package the MIP header of the MIP packet for generating the original packet and next forward the original packet to a correspondent node according to a destination address of the original packet.