Deploying 6to4 outbound routes at the border (was Re: IPv6 news)

Sat Oct 15 02:45:33 UTC 2005

On Sat, 15 Oct 2005, Daniel Roesen wrote:

> > It's as simple as setting up a route to 2002::/16 at the border
> > with a 6to4 conversion.
>
> The problem is building a high performance gateway. Currently you have
> about the following two options:
>
> a) set up / configure a Cisco used as 6to4 gateway
> b) set up a dedicated host (Unix box) as 6to4 gateway
>
> Approach a) is good for only few traffic, really.

<reminiscence>
You know, I still barely remember when I thought IOS could do just about
anything efficiently.  Wow, have times changed.
</reminiscence>

Maybe to start -- but again, what kind of 6to4 traffic level are we
expecting yet?  It's the chicken and egg all over again.

> Approach b) is more complex.

Yes, unfortunately.

> I'm waiting for vendor J to enable option c)... implementing 6to4 via
> the Tunnel PIC (or other PICs including the Tunnel PIC functionalities
> like Link Services PIC). It's a very simple translation/encapsulation
> which doesn't require any state keeping, shouldn't be a big deal. I can
> imagine a few larger IPv6 ISPs then suddenly implementing 6to4 gateways.

The only thing that makes 6to4 more complex, compared to a plain IPIP (or
GRE, or any other point-to-point vanilla tunnel protocol) tunnel is that the
far-side endpoint changes based on the tunneled payload.

That said, it should *not* be an unsurmountable problem -- if the demand is
there.  Has anyone seen if the chicken laid the hatching egg yet?

-- 
-- Todd Vierling <tv at duh.org> <tv at pobox.com> <todd at vierling.name>