Information About IPv6 Client Mobility
Link layer mobility is not enough to make wireless client Layer 3 applications continue to work seamlessly while roaming. Cisco IOSd’s wireless mobility module uses mobility tunneling to retain seamless connectivity for the client’s Layer 3 PoP (point of presence) when the client roams across different subnets on different switches.
IPv6 is the next-generation network layer Internet protocol intended to replace IPv4 in the TCP/IP suite of protocols. This new version increases the internet global address space to accommodate users and applications that require unique global IP addresses. IPv6 incorporates 128-bit source and destination addresses, which provide significantly more addresses than the 32-bit IPv4 addresses.
To support IPv6 clients across controllers, ICMPv6 messages must be dealt with specially to ensure the IPv6 client remains on the same Layer 3 network. The device keeps track of IPv6 clients by intercepting the ICMPv6 messages to provide seamless mobility and protect the network from network attacks. The NDP (neighbor discovery packets) packets are converted from multicast to unicast and delivered individually per client. This unique solution ensures that Neighbor Discovery and Router Advertisement packets are not leaked across VLANs. Clients can receive specific Neighbor Discovery and Router Advertisement packets ensuring correct IPv6 addressing to avoid unnecessary multicast traffic.
The configuration for IPv6 mobility is the same as IPv4 mobility and requires no separate software on the client side to achieve seamless roaming. The device must be part of the same mobility group. Both IPv4 and IPv6 client mobility are enabled by default.
IPv6 client mobility is used for the following:
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Retaining the client IPv6 multiple addresses in Layer-2 and Layer-3 roaming.
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IPv6 Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) packet management.
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Client IPv6 addresses learning.
 Note |
The configuration for IPv6 mobility in SDA wireless and Local mode is the same as of IPv4 mobility and requires no different software configuration on the client side to achieve seamless roaming. Refer to IPv4 mobility section for configuration information. |
Note |
If ipv6 address is configured on the SVI, you should configure ipv6 nd ra suppress all command on all client VLAN SVI interfaces on the controller. This prevents multiple devices from advertising themselves as the routers. |
Using Router Advertisement
The Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) operates in the link-layer and is responsible for the discovery of other nodes on the link. It determines the link-layer addresses of other nodes, finds the available routers, and maintains reachability information about the paths to other active neighbor nodes.
Router Advertisement (RA) is one of the IPv6 Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) packets that is used by the hosts to discover available routers, acquire the network prefix to generate the IPv6 addresses, link MTU, and so on. The routers send RA on a regular basis, or in response to hosts Router Solicitation messages.
IPv6 wireless client mobility manages the IPv6 RA packet . The device forwards the link-local all-nodes multicast RA packets to the local and roaming wireless nodes mapped on same VLAN the RA was received on.
Figure 1 illustrates how a roaming client “MN” receives RA from VLAN 200 in a foreign controller and how it acquires an new IP address and breaks into L3 mobility's point of presence.
Router Advertisement Throttling
RA throttling allows the controller to enforce limits to the RA packets headed toward the wireless network. By enabling RA throttling, routers that send multiple RA packets can be trimmed to a minimum frequency that will still maintain an IPv6 client connectivity. If a client sends an RS packet, an RA is sent back to the client. This RA is allowed through the controller and unicast to the client. This process ensures that the new clients or roaming clients are not affected by the RA throttling.
IPv6 Address Learning
There are three ways for IPv6 client to acquire IPv6 addresses:
- Stateless Address Auto-Configuration (SLAAC)
- Stateful DHCPv6
- Static configuration
For these methods, the IPv6 client always sends NS DAD (duplicate address detection) to ensure that there is no duplicated IP address on the network. The device snoops the clients NDP and DHCPv6 packets to learn about its client IP addresses and then updates the controllers database. The database then informs the controller for the clients new IP address.
Handling Multiple IP Addresses
In the case when the new IP address is received after RUN state, whether an addition or removal, the controller updates the new IP addresses on its local database for display purposes. Essentially, the IPv6 uses the existing or same PEM state machine code flow as in IPv4. When the IP addresses are requested by external entities, for example, from Prime Infrastructure, the controller will include all the available IP addresses, IPv4 and IPv6, in the API/SPI interface to the external entities.
An IPv6 client can acquire multiple IP addresses from stack for different purposes. For example, a link-local address for link local traffic, and a routable unique local or global address.
When the client is in the DHCP request state and the controller receives the first IP address notification from the database for either an IPv4 or IPv6 address, the PEM moves the client into the RUN state.
When a new IP address is received after the RUN state, either for addition or removal, the controller updates the new IP addresses on its local database for display purposes.
When the IP addresses are requested by external entities, for example, from Prime Infrastructure, the controller provides the available IP addresses, both IPv4 and IPv6, to the external entities.
IPv6 Configuration
The device supports IPv6 client as seamlessly as the IPv4 clients. The administrator must manually configure the VLANs to enable the IPv6, IPv6's snooping and throttling functionality. This will enable the NDP packets to throttle between the device and its various clients.
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