various methods and apparatus are directed to providing enhanced functionality and fault tolerance in a system which distributes home agent functionality between a home agent control node and a tunneling node , referred to herein as a home agent tunneling node , which performs packet forwarding under direction of the home agent control node . the distributed home agent approach is enhanced in some embodiments to provide redundancy of home agent control nodes and / or home agent tunneling nodes . thus , in accordance with some embodiments if a home agent control node fails , the secondary home agent control node can take over the home agent control function . various embodiments describe various methods , apparatus , and / or messages in addition to system configurations , which can be used to maintain primary and secondary home agent control and facilitate a rapid transfer of functions between primary and secondary nodes .