Information About IPv6 Virtual Tunnel Interface
IPsec for IPv6
IP Security, or IPsec, is a framework of open standards developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that provide security for transmission of sensitive information over unprotected networks such as the Internet. IPsec acts at the network layer, protecting and authenticating IP packets between participating IPsec devices (peers), such as Cisco routers. IPsec provides the following optional network security services. In general, local security policy will dictate the use of one or more of these services:
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Data confidentiality--The IPsec sender can encrypt packets before sending them across a network.
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Data integrity--The IPsec receiver can authenticate packets sent by the IPsec sender to ensure that the data has not been altered during transmission.
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Data origin authentication--The IPsec receiver can authenticate the source of the IPsec packets sent. This service depends upon the data integrity service.
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Antireplay--The IPsec receiver can detect and reject replayed packets.
With IPsec, data can be sent across a public network without observation, modification, or spoofing. IPsec functionality is similar in both IPv6 and IPv4; however, site-to-site tunnel mode only is supported in IPv6.
In IPv6, IPsec is implemented using the AH authentication header and the ESP extension header. The authentication header provides integrity and authentication of the source. It also provides optional protection against replayed packets. The authentication header protects the integrity of most of the IP header fields and authenticates the source through a signature-based algorithm. The ESP header provides confidentiality, authentication of the source, connectionless integrity of the inner packet, antireplay, and limited traffic flow confidentiality.
The Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol is a key management protocol standard that is used in conjunction with IPsec. IPsec can be configured without IKE, but IKE enhances IPsec by providing additional features, flexibility, and ease of configuration for the IPsec standard.
IKE is a hybrid protocol that implements the Oakley key exchange and Skeme key exchange inside the Internet Security Association Key Management Protocol (ISAKMP) framework (ISAKMP, Oakley, and Skeme are security protocols implemented by IKE) (see the figure below). This functionality is similar to the security gateway model using IPv4 IPsec protection.
IPv6 IPsec Site-to-Site Protection Using Virtual Tunnel Interface
The IPsec virtual tunnel interface (VTI) provides site-to-site IPv6 crypto protection of IPv6 traffic. Native IPv6 IPsec encapsulation is used to protect all types of IPv6 unicast and multicast traffic.
The IPsec VTI allows IPv6 routers to work as security gateways, establish IPsec tunnels between other security gateway routers, and provide crypto IPsec protection for traffic from internal networks when it is sent across the public IPv6 Internet (see the figure below). This functionality is similar to the security gateway model using IPv4 IPsec protection.
![](/c/dam/en/us/td/i/100001-200000/140001-150000/146001-147000/146001.ps/_jcr_content/renditions/146001.jpg)
When the IPsec tunnel is configured, IKE and IPsec security associations (SAs) are negotiated and set up before the line protocol for the tunnel interface is changed to the UP state. The remote IKE peer is the same as the tunnel destination address; the local IKE peer will be the address picked from tunnel source interface which has the same IPv6 address scope as tunnel destination address.
The following figures shows the IPsec packet format.
![](/c/dam/en/us/td/i/100001-200000/140001-150000/146001-147000/146205.ps/_jcr_content/renditions/146205.jpg)