Overlay tunneling encapsulates IPv6 packets in IPv4 packets for delivery across an IPv4 infrastructure (a core network or the Internet (see the figure below). By using overlay tunnels, you can communicate with isolated IPv6 networks without upgrading the IPv4 infrastructure between them. Overlay tunnels can be configured between border routers or between a border router and a host; however, both tunnel endpoints must support both the IPv4 and IPv6 protocol stacks. IPv6 supports the following types of overlay tunneling mechanisms:

• Manual
• Generic routing encapsulation (GRE)
• IPv4-compatible
• 6to4
• Intrasite Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP)

Figure 1

Overlay Tunnels

Note

Overlay tunnels reduce the maximum transmission unit (MTU) of an interface by 20 octets (assuming the basic IPv4 packet header does not contain optional fields). A network using overlay tunnels is difficult to troubleshoot. Therefore, overlay tunnels connecting isolated IPv6 networks should not be considered as a final IPv6 network architecture. The use of overlay tunnels should be considered as a transition technique toward a network that supports both the IPv4 and IPv6 protocol stacks or just the IPv6 protocol stack.

Use the table below to help you determine which type of tunnel you want to configure to carry IPv6 packets over an IPv4 network.

Individual tunnel types are discussed in detail in this document. We recommend that you review and understand the information about the specific tunnel type that you want to implement. When you are familiar with the type of tunnel you need, see the table below for a summary of the tunnel configuration parameters that you may find useful.

A manually configured tunnel is equivalent to a permanent link between two IPv6 domains over an IPv4 backbone. The primary use is for stable connections that require regular secure communication between two edge routers or between an end system and an edge router, or for connection to remote IPv6 networks.

An IPv6 address is manually configured on a tunnel interface, and manually configured IPv4 addresses are assigned to the tunnel source and the tunnel destination. The host or router at each end of a configured tunnel must support both the IPv4 and IPv6 protocol stacks. Manually configured tunnels can be configured between border routers or between a border router and a host.

IPv6 traffic can be carried over IPv4 GRE tunnels using the standard GRE tunneling technique that is designed to provide the services necessary to implement any standard point-to-point encapsulation scheme. As in IPv6 manually configured tunnels, GRE tunnels are links between two points, with a separate tunnel for each link. The tunnels are not tied to a specific passenger or transport protocol, but in this case carry IPv6 as the passenger protocol with the GRE as the carrier protocol and IPv4 or IPv6 as the transport protocol.

The primary use of GRE tunnels is for stable connections that require regular secure communication between two edge routers or between an edge router and an end system. The edge routers and the end systems must be dual-stack implementations.

GRE has a protocol field that identifies the passenger protocol. GRE tunnels allow Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS) or IPv6 to be specified as a passenger protocol, which allows both IS-IS and IPv6 traffic to run over the same tunnel. If GRE did not have a protocol field, it would be impossible to distinguish whether the tunnel was carrying IS-IS or IPv6 packets. The GRE protocol field is why it is desirable that you tunnel IS-IS and IPv6 inside GRE.

An automatic 6to4 tunnel allows isolated IPv6 domains to be connected over an IPv4 network to remote IPv6 networks. The key difference between automatic 6to4 tunnels and manually configured tunnels is that the tunnel is not point-to-point; it is point-to-multipoint. In automatic 6to4 tunnels, routers are not configured in pairs because they treat the IPv4 infrastructure as a virtual nonbroadcast multiaccess (NBMA) link. The IPv4 address embedded in the IPv6 address is used to find the other end of the automatic tunnel.

An automatic 6to4 tunnel may be configured on a border router in an isolated IPv6 network, which creates a tunnel on a per-packet basis to a border router in another IPv6 network over an IPv4 infrastructure. The tunnel destination is determined by the IPv4 address of the border router extracted from the IPv6 address that starts with the prefix 2002::/16, where the format is 2002:border-router-IPv4-address ::/48. Following the embedded IPv4 address are 16 bits that can be used to number networks within the site. The border router at each end of a 6to4 tunnel must support both the IPv4 and IPv6 protocol stacks. 6to4 tunnels are configured between border routers or between a border router and a host.

The simplest deployment scenario for 6to4 tunnels is to interconnect multiple IPv6 sites, each of which has at least one connection to a shared IPv4 network. This IPv4 network could be the global Internet or a corporate backbone. The key requirement is that each site have a globally unique IPv4 address; the Cisco software uses this address to construct a globally unique 6to4/48 IPv6 prefix. As with other tunnel mechanisms, appropriate entries in a Domain Name System (DNS) that map between hostnames and IP addresses for both IPv4 and IPv6 allow the applications to choose the required address.

The 6RD feature is an extension of the 6to4 feature. The 6RD feature allows a service provider (SP) to provide a unicast IPv6 service to customers over its IPv4 network by using encapsulation of IPv6 in IPv4.

The main differences between 6RD and 6to4 tunneling are as follows:

• 6RD does not require addresses to have a 2002::/16 prefix; therefore, the prefix can be from the SP's own address block. This function allows the 6RD operational domain to be within the SP network. From the perspective of customer sites and the general IPv6 internet connected to a 6RD-enabled SP network, the IPv6 service provided is equivalent to native IPv6.
• All 32 bits of the IPv4 destination need not be carried in the IPv6 payload header. The IPv4 destination is obtained from a combination of bits in the payload header and information on the router. Furthermore, the IPv4 address is not at a fixed location in the IPv6 header as it is in 6to4.

The 6RD SP prefix was selected by the SP for the IPv6 deployment shown in the figure below. The 6RD delegated prefix is derived from the SP prefix and the IPv4 address bits, and is used by the CE for hosts within its site.

Figure 2

6RD Deployment

The figure below shows how 6RD prefix delegation works.

Figure 3

6RD Prefix Delegation Explanation

The figure below shows a 6RD prefix delegation topology.

Figure 4

6RD Prefix Delegation and Explanation

ISATAP is an automatic overlay tunneling mechanism that uses the underlying IPv4 network as a NBMA link layer for IPv6. ISATAP is designed for transporting IPv6 packets within a site where a native IPv6 infrastructure is not yet available; for example, when sparse IPv6 hosts are deployed for testing. ISATAP tunnels allow individual IPv4 or IPv6 dual-stack hosts within a site to communicate with other such hosts on the same virtual link, basically creating an IPv6 network using the IPv4 infrastructure.

The ISATAP router provides standard router advertisement network configuration support for the ISATAP site. This feature allows clients to automatically configure themselves as they would do if they were connected to a GigabitEthernet or FastEthernet. It can also be configured to provide connectivity out of the site. ISATAP uses a well-defined IPv6 address format composed of any unicast IPv6 prefix (/64), which can be link local, or global (including 6to4 prefixes), enabling IPv6 routing locally or on the Internet. The IPv4 address is encoded in the last 32 bits of the IPv6 address, enabling automatic IPv6-in-IPv4 tunneling.

Although the ISATAP tunneling mechanism is similar to other automatic tunneling mechanisms, such as IPv6 6to4 tunneling, ISATAP is designed for transporting IPv6 packets within a site, not between sites.

ISATAP uses unicast addresses that include a 64-bit IPv6 prefix and a 64-bit interface identifier. The interface identifier is created in modified EUI-64 format in which the first 32 bits contain the value 000:5EFE to indicate that the address is an IPv6 ISATAP address. The table below describes an ISATAP address format.

As shown in the table above, an ISATAP address consists of an IPv6 prefix and the ISATAP interface identifier. This interface identifier includes the IPv4 address of the underlying IPv4 link. The following example shows what an actual ISATAP address would look like if the prefix is 2001:DB8:1234:5678::/64 and the embedded IPv4 address is 10.173.129.8. In the ISATAP address, the IPv4 address is expressed in hexadecimal as 0AAD:8108:

2001:DB8:1234:5678:0000:5EFE:0AAD:8108

1.    enable

2.    configure terminal

3.    interface tunnel tunnel-number

4.    ipv6 address {ipv6-address / prefix-length | prefix-name sub-bits/prefix-length

5.    tunnel source {ip-address| interface-t ype interface-number}

6.    tunnel destination ip-address

7.    tunnel mode ipv6ip [6rd | 6to4 | auto-tunnel | isatap

1.    enable

2.    configure terminal

3.    interface tunnel tunnel-number

4.    ipv6 address {ipv6-address / prefix-length | prefix-name sub-bits/prefix-length

5.    tunnel source {ip-address | ipv6-address | interface-type interface-number}

6.    tunnel destination {host-name | ip-address | ipv6-address}

7.    tunnel mode {aurp | cayman | dvmrp | eon | gre| gre multipoint | gre ipv6 | ipip [decapsulate-any] | iptalk | ipv6 | mpls | nos

Before You Begin

With 6to4 tunnels, the tunnel destination is determined by the border router IPv4 address, which is concatenated to the prefix 2002::/16 in the format 2002:border-router-IPv4-address ::/48. The border router at each end of a 6to4 tunnel must support both the IPv4 and IPv6 protocol stacks.

Note

The configuration of only one IPv4-compatible tunnel and one 6to4 IPv6 tunnel is supported on a router. If you choose to configure both of those tunnel types on the same router, we strongly recommend that they do not share the same tunnel source. The reason that a 6to4 tunnel and an IPv4-compatible tunnel cannot share an interface is that both of them are NBMA "point-to-multipoint" access links and only the tunnel source can be used to reorder the packets from a multiplexed packet stream into a single packet stream for an incoming interface. So when a packet with an IPv4 protocol type of 41 arrives on an interface, that packet is mapped to an IPv6 tunnel interface based on the IPv4 address. However, if both the 6to4 tunnel and the IPv4-compatible tunnel share the same source interface, the router is not able to determine the IPv6 tunnel interface to which it should assign the incoming packet. IPv6 manually configured tunnels can share the same source interface because a manual tunnel is a "point-to-point" link, and both the IPv4 source and IPv4 destination of the tunnel are defined. >

1.    enable

2.    configure terminal

3.    interface tunnel tunnel-number

4.    ipv6 address {ipv6-address / prefix-length | prefix-name sub-bits/prefix-length

5.    tunnel source {ip-address| interface-t ype interface-number}

6.    tunnel mode ipv6ip [6rd | 6to4 | auto-tunnel | isatap

7.    exit

8.    ipv6 route [vrf vrf-name] ipv6-prefix / prefix-length{ipv6-address | interface-type interface-number [ipv6-address]} [nexthop-vrf [vrf-name1 | default]] [administrative-distance] [administrative-multicast-distance | unicast | multicast] [next-hop-address] [tag tag]

1.    enable

2.    configure terminal

3.    interface tunnel tunnel-number

4.    tunnel source {ip-address| interface-t ype interface-number}

5.    tunnel mode ipv6ip [6rd | 6to4 | auto-tunnel | isatap]

6.    tunnel 6rd prefix ipv6-prefix / prefix-length

7.    tunnel 6rd ipv4 {prefix-length length} {suffix-length length}

1.    enable

2.    configure terminal

3.    interface tunnel tunnel-number

4.    ipv6 address {ipv6-address / prefix-length | prefix-name sub-bits/prefix-length

5.    no ipv6 nd ra suppress

6.    tunnel source {ip-address| interface-type interface-number}

7.    tunnel mode ipv6ip [6rd | 6to4 | auto-tunnel | isatap

1.    enable

2.    show interfaces tunnel number [accounting]

3.    ping [protocol] destination

4.    show ip route [address[mask]]

5.    show tunnel 6rd [interface-type interface-number

6.    show tunnel 6rd destination ipv6-prefix tunnel-interface interface-number

7.    show tunnel 6rd prefix ipv4-destination tunnel-interface interface-number

• Examples
  

• Example: Tunnel Destination Address for IPv6 Tunnel