Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-l3vpn-bgp-ipv6
draft-ietf-l3vpn-bgp-ipv6
INTERNET DRAFT Jeremy De Clercq
<draft-ietf-l3vpn-bgp-ipv6-07.txt> Alcatel
Dirk Ooms
OneSparrow
Marco Carugi
Nortel Networks
Francois Le Faucheur
Cisco Systems
July 2005
Expires January, 2006
BGP-MPLS IP VPN extension for IPv6 VPN
Status of this Memo
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have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes
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Abstract
This document describes a method by which a Service Provider may use
its packet switched backbone to provide Virtual Private Network
services for its IPv6 customers. This method reuses, and extends
where necessary, the "BGP/MPLS IP VPN" method [2547bis] for support
of IPv6. In BGP/MPLS IP VPN, "Multiprotocol BGP" is used for
distributing IPv4 VPN routes over the service provider backbone and
MPLS is used to forward IPv4 VPN packets over the backbone. This
document defines an IPv6 VPN address family and describes the
corresponding IPv6 VPN route distribution in "Multiprotocol BGP".
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This document defines support of the IPv6 VPN service over both an
IPv4 and an IPv6 backbone, and using various tunneling techniques
over the core including MPLS, IP-in-IP, GRE and IPsec protected
tunnels. The inter-working between an IPv4 site and an IPv6 site is
outside the scope of this document.
Table of Content
1. Introduction ................................................. 2
2. The VPN-IPv6 Address Family .................................. 4
3. VPN-IPv6 route distribution .................................. 5
3.1 Route Distribution Among PEs by BGP .......................... 5
3.2 VPN IPv6 NLRI encoding ....................................... 5
3.2.1 BGP Next Hop encoding ...................................... 6
3.2.1.1 BGP speaker requesting IPv6 transport .................... 6
3.2.1.2 BGP speaker requesting IPv4 transport .................... 8
3.3 Route Target ................................................. 8
3.4 BGP Capability Negotiation ................................... 8
4. Encapsulation ................................................ 8
5. Address Types ................................................ 10
6. Multicast .................................................... 10
7. Carriers' Carrier ............................................ 10
8. Multi-AS Backbones ........................................... 11
9. Accessing the Internet from a VPN ............................ 12
10. Management VPN ............................................... 13
11. Security Considerations ...................................... 13
12. Quality of Service ........................................... 13
13. Scalability .................................................. 14
14. IANA Considerations .......................................... 14
15. Acknowledgements ............................................. 14
16. Normative references ......................................... 14
17. Informative references ....................................... 15
18. Authors' Addresses ........................................... 16
1. Introduction
This document describes a method by which a Service Provider may use
its packet switched backbone to provide Virtual Private Network
services for its IPv6 customers.
This method reuses, and extends where necessary, the "BGP/MPLS IP
VPN" method [2547bis] for support of IPv6. In particular, this method
uses the same "peer model" as [2547bis], in which the customers' edge
routers ("CE routers") send their IPv6 routes to the Service
Provider's edge routers ("PE routers"). BGP ("Border Gateway
Protocol", [BGP, BGP-MP]) is then used by the Service Provider to
exchange the routes of a particular IPv6 VPN among the PE routers
that are attached to that IPv6 VPN. Eventually, the PE routers
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distribute, to the CE routers in a particular VPN, the IPv6 routes
from other CE routers in that VPN. As with IPv4 VPNs, a key
characteristic of this "peer model" is that the (IPv6) CE routers
within an (IPv6) VPN do not peer with each other and there is no
"overlay" visible to the (IPv6) VPN's routing algorithm.
This document adopts the definitions, acronyms and mechanisms
described in [2547bis]. Unless otherwise stated, the mechanisms of
[2547bis] apply and will not be re-described here.
A VPN is said to be an IPv6 VPN, when each site of this VPN is IPv6
capable and is natively connected over an IPv6 interface or sub
interface to the SP backbone via a Provider Edge device (PE).
A site may be both IPv4-capable and IPv6-capable. The logical
interface on which packets arrive at the PE may determine the IP
version. Alternatively the same logical interface may be used for
both IPv4 and IPv6 in which case a per-packet lookup at the Version
field of the IP packet header determines the IP version.
This document only concerns itself with handling of IPv6
communication between IPv6 hosts located on IPv6-capable sites.
Handling of IPv4 communication between IPv4 hosts located on IPv4-
capable sites is outside the scope of this document and is covered in
[2547bis]. Communication between an IPv4 host located in an IPv4-
capable site and an IPv6 host located in an IPv6-capable site is
outside the scope of this document.
In a similar manner to how IPv4 VPN routes are distributed in
[2547bis], BGP and its extensions are used to distribute routes from
an IPv6 VPN site to all the other PE routers connected to a site of
the same IPv6 VPN. PEs use "VPN Routing and Forwarding tables" (VRFs)
to separately maintain the reachability information and forwarding
information of each IPv6 VPN.
As it is done for IPv4 VPNs [2547bis], we allow each IPv6 VPN to have
its own IPv6 address space, which means that a given address may
denote different systems in different VPNs. This is achieved via a
new address family, the VPN-IPv6 Address Family, in a fashion similar
to the VPN-IPv4 address family defined in [2547bis] and which
prepends a Route Distinguisher to the IP address.
In addition to its operation over MPLS Label Switched Paths (LSPs),
the IPv4 BGP/MPLS VPN solution has been extended to allow operation
over other tunneling techniques including GRE tunnels, IP-in-IP
tunnels [2547-GRE/IP], L2TPv3 tunnels [MPLS-in-L2TPv3] and IPsec
protected tunnels [2547-IPsec]. In a similar manner, this document
allows support of an IPv6 VPN service over MPLS LSPs as well as over
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other tunneling techniques.
This document allows support for an IPv6 VPN service over an IPv4
backbone as well as over an IPv6 backbone. The IPv6 VPN service
supported is identical in both cases.
The IPv6 VPN solution defined in this document offers the following
benefits:
o from both the Service Provider perspective and the customer
perspective, the VPN service that can be supported for IPv6 sites
is identical to the one that can be supported for IPv4 sites;
o from the Service Provider perspective, operations of the IPv6
VPN service require the exact same skills, procedures and
mechanisms as for the IPv4 VPN service;
o where both IPv4 VPNs and IPv6 VPN services are supported over an
IPv4 core, the same single set of MP-BGP peering relationships and
the same single PE-PE tunnel mesh MAY be used for both;
o the IPv6 VPN service is independent of whether the core runs
IPv4 or IPv6. So that the IPv6 VPN service supported before, and
after a migration of the core from IPv4 to IPv6 is
undistinguishable to the VPN customer.
Note that supporting IPv4 VPN services over an IPv6 core is not
covered by this document.
2. The VPN-IPv6 Address Family
The BGP Multiprotocol Extensions [BGP-MP] allow BGP to carry routes
from multiple "address families". We introduce the notion of the
"VPN-IPv6 address family", that is similar to the VPN-IPv4 address
family introduced in [2547bis].
A VPN-IPv6 address is a 24-byte quantity, beginning with an 8-byte
"Route Distinguisher" (RD) and ending with a 16-byte IPv6 address.
The purpose of the RD is solely to allow one to create distinct
routes to a common IPv6 address prefix, similarly to the purpose of
the RD defined in [2547bis]. In the same way as it is possible per
[2547bis], the RD can be used to create multiple different routes to
the very same system. This can be achieved by creating two different
VPN-IPv6 routes that have the same IPv6 part, but different RDs. This
allows the provider's BGP to install multiple different routes to the
same system, and allows policy to be used to decide which packets use
which route.
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Also, if two VPNs were to use the same IPv6 address prefix
(effectively denoting different physical systems), the PEs would
translate these into unique VPN-IPv6 address prefixes using different
RDs. This ensures that if the same address is ever used in two
different VPNs, it is possible to install two completely different
routes to that address, one for each VPN.
Since VPN-IPv6 addresses and IPv6 addresses belong to different
address families, BGP never treats them as comparable addresses.
A VRF may have multiple equal-cost VPN-IPv6 routes for a single IPv6
address prefix. When a packet's destination address is matched in a
VRF against a VPN-IPv6 route, only the IPv6 part is actually matched.
The Route Distinguisher format and encoding is as specified in
[2547bis].
When a site is IPv4-capable and IPv6-capable, the same RD may be used
for the advertisement of IPv6 addresses and IPv4 addresses.
Alternatively, a different RD may be used for the advertisement of
the IPv4 addresses and of the IPv6 addresses. Note however that in
the scope of this specification, IPv4 addresses and IPv6 addresses
will always be handled in separate contexts and no IPv4-IPv6
interworking issues and techniques will be discussed.
3. VPN-IPv6 route distribution
3.1. Route Distribution Among PEs by BGP
As described in [2547bis], if two sites of a VPN attach to PEs which
are in the same Autonomous System, the PEs can distribute VPN routes
to each other by means of an (IPv4) iBGP connection between them.
Alternatively, each PE can have iBGP connections to route reflectors.
Similarly, for IPv6 VPN route distribution, PEs can use iBGP
connections between them or use iBGP connections to route reflectors.
For IPv6 VPN, the iBGP connections MAY be over IPv4 or over IPv6.
The PE routers exchange, via MP-BGP [MP-BGP], reachability
information for the IPv6 prefixes in the IPv6 VPNs and thereby
announce themselves as the BGP Next Hop.
The rules for encoding the reachability information and the BGP Next
Hop address are specified in the following sections.
3.2 VPN IPv6 NLRI encoding
When distributing IPv6 VPN routes, the advertising PE router MUST
assign and distribute MPLS labels with the IPv6 VPN routes.
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Essentially, PE routers do not distribute IPv6 VPN routes, but
Labeled IPv6 VPN routes [MPLS-BGP]. When the advertising PE then
receives a packet that has this particular advertised label, the PE
will pop the MPLS stack, and process the packet appropriately (i.e.
forward it directly based on the label or perform a lookup in the
corresponding IPv6-VPN context).
The BGP Multiprotocol Extensions [BGP-MP] are used to advertise the
IPv6 VPN routes in the MP_REACH NLRI. The AFI and SAFI fields MUST be
set as follows:
- AFI: 2; for IPv6
- SAFI: 128; for MPLS labeled VPN-IPv6
The NLRI field itself is encoded as specified in [MPLS-BGP]. In the
context of this extension, the prefix belongs to the VPN-IPv6 Address
Family and thus consists of an 8-byte Route Distinguisher followed by
an IPv6 prefix as specified in section 2 above.
3.2.1 BGP Next Hop encoding
The encoding of the BGP Next Hop depends on whether the policy of the
BGP speaker is to request that IPv6 VPN traffic be transported to
that BGP Next Hop using IPv6 tunneling (''BGP speaker requesting IPv6
transport'') or using IPv4 tunneling (''BGP speaker requesting IPv4
transport'').
Definition of this policy (to request transport over IPv4 tunneling
or IPv6 tunneling) is the responsibility of the network operator and
is beyond the scope of this document. We note that it is possible for
that policy to request transport over IPv4 (resp. IPv6) tunneling
while the BGP speakers exchange IPv6 VPN reachability information
over IPv6 (resp. IPv4). However, in that case, a number of
operational implications are worth considering. In particular, an
undetected fault affecting the IPv4 (resp. IPv6) tunneling data path
and not affecting the IPv6 (resp. IPv4) data path, could remain
undetected by BGP, which in turn may result in black-holing of
traffic.
Control of this policy is beyond the scope of this document and may
be based on user configuration.
3.2.1.1 BGP speaker requesting IPv6 transport
When the IPv6 VPN traffic is to be transported to the BGP speaker
using IPv6 tunneling (e.g. IPv6 MPLS LSPs, IPsec-protected IPv6
tunnels), the BGP speaker SHALL advertise a Next Hop Network Address
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field containing a VPN-IPv6 address:
- whose 8-byte RD is set to zero, and
- whose 16-byte IPv6 address is set to the global IPv6 address of
the advertising BGP speaker.
potentially followed by another VPN-IPv6 address:
- whose 8-byte RD is set to zero, and
- whose 16-byte IPv6 address is set to the link-local IPv6 address
of the advertising BGP speaker.
The value of the Length of the Next Hop Network Address field in the
MP_REACH_NLRI attribute shall be set to 24 when only a global address
is present, and to 48 if a link-local address is also included in the
Next Hop field.
In the particular case where the BGP speakers peer using only their
link-local IPv6 address (for example in the case where an IPv6 CE
peers with an IPv6 PE and the CE does not have any IPv6 global
address and eBGP peering is achieved over the link-local addresses),
the ''unspecified address'' ([V6ADDR]) is used by the advertising BGP
speaker to indicate the absence of the global IPv6 address in the
Next Hop Network Address field.
The link-local address shall be included in the Next Hop field if and
only if the advertising BGP speaker shares a common subnet with the
peer the route is being advertised to [RFC2545].
In all other cases, a BGP speaker shall advertise to its peer in the
Next Hop Network Address field only the global IPv6 address of the
next hop.
As a consequence, a BGP speaker that advertises a route to an
internal peer may modify the Network Address of Next Hop field by
removing the link-local IPv6 address of the next hop.
An example scenario where both the global IPv6 address and the link-
local IPv6 address shall be included in the BGP Next Hop address
field is where the IPv6 VPN service is supported over a multi-AS
backbone with redistribution of labeled VPN-IPv6 routes between
Autonomous System Border Routers (ASBR) of different ASes sharing a
common IPv6 subnet: in that case, both the global IPv6 address and
the link-local IPv6 address shall be advertised by the ASBRs.
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3.2.1.2 BGP Speaker requesting IPv4 transport
When the IPv6 VPN traffic is to be transported to the BGP speaker
using IPv4 tunneling (e.g. IPv4 MPLS LSPs, IPsec-protected IPv4
tunnels), the BGP speaker SHALL advertise to its peer a Next Hop
Network Address field containing a VPN-IPv6 address:
- whose 8-byte RD is set to zero, and
- whose 16-byte IPv6 address is encoded as an IPv4-mapped IPv6
address [V6ADDR] containing the IPv4 address of the advertising
BGP speaker. This IPv4 address must be routable by the other BGP
Speaker.
3.3. Route Target
The use of route target is specified in [2547bis] and applies to IPv6
VPNs. Encoding of the extended community attribute is defined in
[BGP-EXTCOM].
3.4 BGP Capability Negotiation
In order for two PEs to exchange labeled IPv6 VPN NLRIs, they MUST
use BGP Capabilities Negotiation to ensure that they both are capable
of properly processing such NLRIs. This is done as specified in
[BGP-MP] and [BGP-CAP], by using capability code 1 (multiprotocol
BGP), with AFI and SAFI values as specified above in section 3.2.
4. Encapsulation
The ingress PE Router MUST tunnel IPv6 VPN data over the backbone
towards the Egress PE router identified as the BGP Next Hop for the
corresponding destination IPv6 VPN prefix.
When the 16-byte IPv6 address contained in the BGP Next Hop field is
encoded as an IPv4-mapped IPv6 address (see section 3.2.1.2), the
ingress PE MUST use IPv4 tunneling unless explicitly configured to do
otherwise. The ingress PE might optionally allow, through explicit
configuration, the use of IPv6 tunneling when the 16-byte IPv6
address contained in the BGP Next Hop field is encoded as an IPv4-
mapped IPv6 address. This would allow support of particular
deployment environments where IPv6 tunneling is desired but where
IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses happen to be used for IPv6 reachability of
the PEs instead of Global IPv6 addresses.
When the 16-byte IPv6 address contained in the BGP Next Hop field is
not encoded as an IPv4-mapped address (see section 3.2.1.1), the
ingress PE MUST use IPv6 tunneling.
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When a PE receives a packet from an attached CE, it looks up the
packet's IPv6 destination address in the VRF corresponding to that
CE. This enables it to find a VPN-IPv6 route. The VPN-IPv6 route will
have an associated MPLS label and an associated BGP Next Hop. First,
this MPLS label is pushed on the packet as the bottom label. Then,
this labeled packet is encapsulated into the tunnel for transport to
the egress PE identified by the BGP Next Hop. Details of this
encapsulation depend on the actual tunneling technique as follows:
As with MPLS/BGP for IPv4 VPNs [2547-GRE/IP], when tunneling is done
using IPv4 tunnels or IPv6 tunnels (resp. IPv4 GRE tunnels or IPv6
GRE tunnels), encapsulation of the labeled IPv6 VPN packet results in
an MPLS-in-IP (resp. MPLS-in-GRE) encapsulated packet as specified in
[MPLS-in-IP/GRE]. When tunneling is done using L2TPv3, encapsulation
of the labeled IPv6 VPN packet results in an MPLS-in-L2TPv3
encapsulated packet as specified in [MPLS-in-L2TPv3].
As with MPLS/BGP for IPv4 VPNs, when tunneling is done using an IPsec
secured tunnel [2547-IPsec], encapsulation of the labeled IPv6 VPN
packet results in an MPLS-in-IP or MPLS-in-GRE encapsulated packet
[MPLS-in-IP/GRE]. The IPsec Transport Mode is used to secure this
IPv4 or GRE tunnel from ingress PE to egress PE.
When tunneling is done using IPv4 tunnels (whether IPsec secured or
not), the Ingress PE Router MUST use the IPv4 address which is
encoded in the IPv4-mapped IPv6 address field of the BGP next hop
field, as the destination address of the prepended IPv4 tunneling
header. It uses one of its IPv4 addresses as the source address of
the prepended IPv4 tunneling header.
When tunneling is done using IPv6 tunnels (whether IPsec secured or
not), the Ingress PE Router MUST use the IPv6 address which is
contained in the IPv6 address field of the BGP next hop field, as the
destination address of the prepended IPv6 tunneling header. It uses
one of its IPv6 addresses as the source address of the prepended IPv6
tunneling header.
When tunneling is done using MPLS LSPs, the LSPs can be established
using any label distribution technique (LDP[LDP], RSVP-TE [RSVP-TE],
...). Nevertheless, to ensure interoperability among systems that
implement this VPN architecture using MPLS LSPs as the tunneling
technology, all such systems MUST support LDP [LDP].
When tunneling is done using MPLS LSPs, the ingress PE Router MUST
directly push the LSP tunnel label on the label stack of the labeled
IPv6 VPN packet (i.e. without prepending any IPv4 or IPv6 header).
This pushed label corresponds to the LSP starting on the ingress PE
Router and ending on the egress PE Router. The BGP Next Hop field is
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used to identify the egress PE router and in turn the label to be
pushed on the stack. When the IPv6 address in the BGP Next Hop field
is a IPv4-mapped IPv6 address, the embedded IPv4 address will
determine the tunnel label to push on the label stack. In any other
case, the IPv6 address in the BGP Next Hop field will determine the
tunnel label to push on the label stack.
5. Address Types
Since Link-local unicast addresses are defined for use on a single
link only, those may be used on the PE-CE link but they are not
supported for reachability across IPv6 VPN Sites and are never
advertised via MP-BGP to remote PEs.
Global unicast addresses are defined as uniquely identifying
interfaces anywhere in the IPv6 Internet. Global addresses are
expected to be commonly used within and across IPv6 VPN Sites. They
are obviously supported by this IPv6 VPN solution for reachability
across IPv6 VPN Sites and advertised via MP-BGP to remote PEs and
processed without any specific considerations to their Global scope.
Quoting from [UNIQUE-LOCAL]: "This document defines an IPv6 unicast
address format that is globally unique and is intended for local
communications [IPv6]. These addresses are called Unique Local IPv6
Unicast Addresses and are abbreviated in this document as Local IPv6
addresses. They are not expected to be routable on the global
Internet. They are routable inside of a more limited area such as a
site. They may also be routed between a limited set of sites."
[UNIQUE-LOCAL] also says in its section 10: "Local IPv6 addresses can
be used for inter-site Virtual Private Networks (VPN) if appropriate
routes are set up. Because the addresses are unique these VPNs will
work reliably and without the need for translation. They have the
additional property that they will continue to work if the individual
sites are renumbered or merged."
In accordance with this, Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses are
supported by the IPv6 VPN solution specified in this document for
reachability across IPv6 VPN Sites. Hence, reachability to such
Unique Local IPv6 Addresses may be advertised via MP-BGP to remote
PEs and processed by PEs in the same way as Global Unicast addresses.
6. Multicast
Multicast operations is outside the scope of this document.
7. Carriers' Carriers
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Sometimes an IPv6 VPN may actually be the network of an IPv6 ISP,
with its own peering and routing policies. Sometimes an IPv6 VPN may
be the network of an SP which is offering VPN services in turn to its
own customers. IPv6 VPNs like these can also obtain backbone service
from another SP, the ''Carrier's Carrier'', using the Carriers'
Carrier method described in section 9 of [2547bis] but applied to
IPv6 traffic. All the considerations discussed in [2547bis] for IPv4
VPN Carriers' Carrier apply for IPv6 VPN with the exception that the
use of MPLS (including label distribution) between the PE and the CE
pertains to IPv6 routes instead of IPv4 routes.
8. Multi-AS Backbones
The same procedures described in section 10 of [2547bis] can be used
(and have the same scalability properties) to address the situation
where two sites of an IPv6 VPN are connected to different Autonomous
Systems. However some additional points should be noted when applying
these procedures for IPv6 VPNs; these are further described in the
remainder of this section.
Approach (a): VRF-to-VRF connections at the AS (Autonomous System)
border routers.
This approach is the equivalent for IPv6 VPNs to procedure (a)
described in section 10 of [2547bis]. In the case of IPv6 VPNs, IPv6
needs to be activated on the inter-ASBR VRF-to-VRF (sub)interfaces.
In this approach, the ASBRs exchange IPv6 routes (as opposed to VPN-
IPv6 routes) and may peer over IPv6 or over IPv4. The exchange of
IPv6 routes MUST be carried out as per [MP-BGP-v6]. This method does
not use inter-AS LSPs.
Finally note that with this procedure, since every AS independently
implements the intra-AS procedures for IPv6 VPNs described in this
document, the participating ASes may all internally use IPv4
tunneling, or the participating ASes may all internally use IPv6
tunneling, or alternatively some participating ASes may internally
use IPv4 tunneling while some participating ASes may internally use
IPv6 tunneling.
Approach (b): EBGP redistribution of labeled VPN-IPv6 routes from AS
to neighboring AS.
This approach is the equivalent for IPv6 VPNs to procedure (b)
described in section 10 of [2547bis]. With this approach, the ASBRs
use EBGP to redistribute labeled VPN-IPv4 routes to ASBRs in other
ASes.
In this approach, IPv6 may or may not be activated on the inter-ASBR
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links since the ASBRs exchanging VPN-IPv6 routes may peer over IPv4
or IPv6 (in which case, IPv6 obviously needs to be activated on the
inter-ASBR link). The exchange of labeled VPN-IPv6 routes MUST be
carried out as per [MP-BGP-v6] and [LABEL]. When the VPN-IPv6 traffic
is to be transported using IPv6 tunneling, the BGP Next Hop Field
SHALL contain an IPv6 address. When the VPN-IPv6 traffic is to be
transported using IPv4 tunneling, the BGP Next Hop Field SHALL
contain an IPv4 address encoded as an IPv4-mapped IPv6 address.
This approach requires that there be inter-AS LSPs. As such the
corresponding (security) considerations described for procedure (b)
in section 10 of [2547bis] apply equally to this approach for IPv6.
Finally note that with this procedure, as with procedure (a), since
every AS independently implements the intra-AS procedures for IPv6
VPNs described in this document, the participating ASes may all
internally use IPv4 tunneling, or the participating ASes may all
internally use IPv6 tunneling, or alternatively some participating
ASes may internally use IPv4 tunneling while some participating ASes
may internally use IPv6 tunneling.
Approach (c) : Multihop EBGP redistribution of labeled VPN-IPv6
routes between source and destination ASes, with EBGP redistribution
of labeled IPv4 or IPv6 routes from AS to neighboring AS.
This approach is the equivalent for exchange of VPN-IPv6 routes to
procedure (c) described in section 10 of [2547bis] for exchange of
VPN-IPv4 routes.
This approach requires that the participating ASes either all use
IPv4 tunneling or alternatively all use IPv6 tunneling.
In this approach, VPN-IPv6 routes are neither maintained nor
distributed by the ASBR routers. The ASBR routers need not be dual
stack. An ASBR needs to maintain labeled IPv4 (or IPv6) routes to the
PE routers within its AS. It uses EBGP to distribute these routes to
other ASes. ASBRs in any transit ASes will also have to use EBGP to
pass along the labeled IPv4 (or IPv6) routes. This results in the
creation of an IPv4 (or IPv6) label switch path from ingress PE
router to egress PE router. Now PE routers in different ASes can
establish multi-hop EBGP connections to each other over IPv4 or IPv6,
and can exchange labeled VPN-IPv6 routes over those EBGP connections.
Note that the BGP Next Hop field of these distributed VPN-IPv6 routes
will contain an IPv6 address when IPv6 tunneling is used or an IPv4-
mapped IPv6 address when IPv4 tunneling is used.
The considerations described for procedure (c) in section 10 of
[2547bis] with respect to possible use of route-reflectors, with
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respect to possible use of a third label, and with respect to LSPs
spanning multiple ASes apply equally to this IPv6 VPN approach.
9. Accessing the Internet from a VPN
The methods proposed by [2547bis] to access the global IPv4 Internet
from an IPv4 VPN can be used in the context of IPv6 VPNs and the
global IPv6 Internet. Note however that if the IPv6 packets from
IPv6 VPN sites and destined for the global IPv6 Internet need to
traverse the SP backbone, and if this is an IPv4 only backbone, these
packets must be tunneled through that IPv4 backbone.
Clearly, as is the case outside the VPN context, access to the IPv6
Internet from an IPv6 VPN requires the use of global IPv6 addresses.
In particular, Unique Local IPv6 addresses can not be used for IPv6
Internet access.
10. Management VPN
The management considerations discussed in section 12 of [2547bis]
apply to the management of IPv6 VPNs.
Where the Service Provider manages the CE of the IPv6 VPN site, the
Service Provider may elect to use IPv4 for communication between the
management tool and the CE for such management purposes. In that
case, regardless of whether a customer IPv4 site is actually
connected to the CE or not (in addition to the IPv6 site), the CE is
effectively part of an IPv4 VPN in addition to belonging to an IPv6
VPN (i.e. the CE is attached to a VRF which supports IPv4 in addition
to IPv6). Considerations presented in [2547bis] on how to ensure that
the management tool can communicate with such managed CEs from
multiple VPNs without allowing undesired reachability across CEs of
different VPNs, are applicable to the IPv4 reachability of the VRF to
which the CE attaches.
Where the Service Provider manages the CE of the IPv6 VPN site, the
Service Provider may elect to use IPv6 for communication between the
management tool and the CE for such management purposes.
Considerations presented in [2547bis] on how to ensure that the
management tool can communicate with such managed CEs from multiple
VPNs without allowing undesired reachability across CEs of different
VPNs, are then applicable to the IPv6 reachability of the VRF to
which the CE attaches.
11. Security Considerations
The extensions defined in this document allow MP-BGP to propagate
reachability information about IPv6 VPN routes.
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Security considerations for the transport of IPv6 reachability
information using BGP are discussed in RFC2545, section 5, and are
equally applicable for the extensions described in this document.
The extensions described in this document for offering IPv6 VPNs use
the exact same approach as the approach described in [2547bis]. As
such, the same security considerations with regards to Data Plane
security, Control Plane security and PE and P device security as
described in [2547bis], section 13, apply.
12. Quality of Service
Since all the QoS mechanisms discussed for IPv4 VPNs in section 14 of
[2547bis] operate in the same way for IPv4 and IPv6 (Diffserv,
Intserv, MPLS Traffic Engineering), the QoS considerations discussed
in [2547bis] are equally applicable to IPv6 VPNs (and this holds
whether IPv4 tunneling or IPv6 tunneling is used in the backbone.)
13. Scalability
Each of the scalability considerations summarized for IPv4 VPNs in
section 15 of [2547bis] are equally applicable to IPv6 VPNs.
14. IANA Considerations
This document specifies (see section 3.2) the use of the BGP AFI
(Address Family Identifier) value 2, along with the BGP SAFI
(Subsequent Address Family Identifier) value 128, to represent the
address family ''VPN-IPv6 Labeled Addresses'', which is defined in
this document.
The use of AFI value 2 for IP is as currently specified in the IANA
registry ''Address Family Identifier'', so IANA need take no action
with respect to it.
At the time of this writing, the SAFI value 128 is specified as
''Private Use'' in the IANA ''Subsequent Address Family Identifier''
registry. However, as discussed in section 16 of [2547bis], IANA has
been requested to change the SAFI value 128 from ''private use'' to
''MPLS-labeled VPN address''. This document is in line with this
requested change and no additional IANA action, beyond this change,
is needed.
15. Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Gerard Gastaud and Eric Levy-Abegnoli who
contributed to this document.
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In Memoriam:
The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable contribution to
this document from Tri T. Nguyen, who passed away in April 2002 after
a sudden illness.
16. Normative References
[2547bis] Rosen et al., "BGP/MPLS VPNs", draft-ietf-l3vpn-rfc2547bis,
work in progress
[BGP-EXTCOMM] Ramachandra, Tappan, Rekhter, "BGP Extended Communities
Attribute", work in progress
[BGP-MP] Bates, Chandra, Katz, and Rekhter, "Multiprotocol Extensions
for BGP4", June 2000, RFC2858
[IPv6] Deering, S., and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
(IPv6) Specification", RFC2460.
[MPLS-ARCH] Rosen, Viswanathan, and Callon, "Multiprotocol Label
Switching Architecture", RFC3031
[MPLS-BGP] Rekhter and Rosen, "Carrying Label Information in BGP4",
RFC3107
[MPLS-ENCAPS] Rosen, Rekhter, Tappan, Farinacci, Fedorkow, Li, and
Conta, "MPLS Label Stack Encoding", RFC3032
[BGP-CAP] Chandra, R., Scudder, J., "Capabilities Advertisement with
BGP-4", November 2002, RFC3392
[MPLS-LDP] Andersson, Doolan, Feldman, Fredette, Thomas, "LDP
Specification", RFC3036
[RFC2545] Marques, P., Dupont, F., "Use of BGP-4 Multiprotocol
Extensions for IPv6 Inter-Domain Routing", March 1999, RFC2545
17. Informative References
[V6ADDR] Deering, S., and Hinden, R., "IP Version 6 Addressing
Architecture", April 2003, RFC3513
[UNIQUE-LOCAL] R. Hinden and B. Haberman, ''Unique Local IPv6 Unicast
Addresses'', draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr, work in progress
[2547-GRE/IP] Rekhter and Rosen, "Use of PE-PE GRE or IP in RFC2547
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VPNs", draft-ietf-l3vpn-gre-ip-2547, work in progress
[2547-IPsec] Rosen, De Clercq, Paridaens, T'Joens, Sargor, "Use of
PE-PE IPsec in RFC2547 VPNs", draft-ietf-l3vpn-ipsec-2547, work in
progress
[TRANS] R. Gilligan, E. Nordmark, "Transition Mechanisms for IPv6
Hosts and Routers", RFC2893.
[SCOPE-ARCH] Deering, S., et al., "IPv6 Scoped Address Architecture",
draft-ietf-ipv6-scoping-arch, work in progress
[RSVP-TE] Awduche, D., et al., "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP
Tunnels", December 2001, RFC3209
[MPLS-in-IP/GRE] Worster, T., et al., "Encapsulating MPLS in IP or
GRE", draft-ietf-mpls-in-ip-or-gre, work in progress
[MPLS-in-L2TPv3] Townsley, M., et al., "Encapsulation of MPLS over
Layer-2 Tunneling Protocol Version 3", draft-ietf-mpls-over-l2tpv3,
work in progress.
18. Authors' Addresses
Jeremy De Clercq
Alcatel
Fr. Wellesplein 1, 2018 Antwerpen, Belgium
E-mail: jeremy.de_clercq@alcatel.be
Dirk Ooms
OneSparrow
Belegstraat 13, 2018 Antwerpen, Belgium
E-mail: dirk@onesparrow.com
Marco Carugi
Nortel Networks S.A.
Parc d'activites de Magny-Les Jeunes Bois CHATEAUFORT
78928 YVELINES Cedex 9 - France
E-mail: marco.carugi@nortelnetworks.com
Francois Le Faucheur
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Village d'Entreprise Green Side - Batiment T3
400, Avenue de Roumanille
06410 Biot-Sophia Antipolis
France
E-mail: flefauch@cisco.com
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