IPv6¶

This section describes the OpenStack Networking reference implementation for IPv6, including the following items:

How to enable dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6 enabled) instances.
How those instances receive an IPv6 address.
How those instances communicate across a router to other subnets or the internet.
How those instances interact with other OpenStack services.

Enabling a dual-stack network in OpenStack Networking simply requires creating a subnet with the ip_version field set to 6, then the IPv6 attributes (ipv6_ra_mode and ipv6_address_mode) set. The ipv6_ra_mode and ipv6_address_mode will be described in detail in the next section. Finally, the subnets cidr needs to be provided.

This section does not include the following items:

Single stack IPv6 project networking
OpenStack control communication between servers and services over an IPv6 network.
Connection to the OpenStack APIs via an IPv6 transport network
IPv6 multicast
IPv6 support in conjunction with any out of tree routers, switches, services or agents whether in physical or virtual form factors.

Neutron subnets and the IPv6 API attributes¶

As of Juno, the OpenStack Networking service (neutron) provides two new attributes to the subnet object, which allows users of the API to configure IPv6 subnets.

There are two IPv6 attributes:

ipv6_ra_mode
ipv6_address_mode

These attributes can be set to the following values:

slaac
dhcpv6-stateful
dhcpv6-stateless

The attributes can also be left unset.

IPv6 addressing¶

The ipv6_address_mode attribute is used to control how addressing is handled by OpenStack. There are a number of different ways that guest instances can obtain an IPv6 address, and this attribute exposes these choices to users of the Networking API.

Router advertisements¶

The ipv6_ra_mode attribute is used to control router advertisements for a subnet.

The IPv6 Protocol uses Internet Control Message Protocol packets (ICMPv6) as a way to distribute information about networking. ICMPv6 packets with the type flag set to 134 are called “Router Advertisement” messages, which contain information about the router and the route that can be used by guest instances to send network traffic.

The ipv6_ra_mode is used to specify if the Networking service should generate Router Advertisement messages for a subnet.

ipv6_ra_mode and ipv6_address_mode combinations¶

ipv6 ra mode	ipv6 address mode	neutron-generated advertisements (radvd) A,M,O	External Router A,M,O	Description
N/S	N/S	Off	Not Defined	Backwards compatibility with pre-Juno IPv6 behavior.
N/S	slaac	Off	1,0,0	Guest instance obtains IPv6 address from non-OpenStack router using SLAAC.
N/S	dhcpv6-stateful	Off	0,1,1	Not currently implemented in the reference implementation.
N/S	dhcpv6-stateless	Off	1,0,1	Not currently implemented in the reference implementation.
slaac	N/S	1,0,0	Off	Not currently implemented in the reference implementation.
dhcpv6-stateful	N/S	0,1,0	Off	Not currently implemented in the reference implementation.
dhcpv6-stateless	N/S	1,0,1	Off	Not currently implemented in the reference implementation.
slaac	slaac	1,0,0	Off	Guest instance obtains IPv6 address from OpenStack managed radvd using SLAAC.
dhcpv6-stateful	dhcpv6-stateful	0,1,0	Off	Guest instance obtains IPv6 address from dnsmasq using DHCPv6 stateful and optional info from dnsmasq using DHCPv6.
dhcpv6-stateless	dhcpv6-stateless	1,0,1	Off	Guest instance obtains IPv6 address from OpenStack managed radvd using SLAAC and optional info from dnsmasq using DHCPv6.
slaac	dhcpv6-stateful			Invalid combination.
slaac	dhcpv6-stateless			Invalid combination.
dhcpv6-stateful	slaac			Invalid combination.
dhcpv6-stateful	dhcpv6-stateless			Invalid combination.
dhcpv6-stateless	slaac			Invalid combination.
dhcpv6-stateless	dhcpv6-stateful			Invalid combination.

A - Autonomous Address Configuration Flag, M - Managed Address Configuration Flag, O - Other Configuration Flag

Note

If the M flag is set to 1, the O flag can be either 1 or 0. This is because the O flag can be ignored when the M flag is set to 1, as mentioned in RFC 4861 below:

“If the M flag is set, the O flag is redundant and can be ignored because DHCPv6 will return all available configuration information.”

For this reason, the neutron-generated advertisements will have the M flag set to 1 and the O flag set to 0.

Project network considerations¶

Dataplane¶

All dataplane modules, including OVN, Open vSwitch and Linux bridge, support forwarding IPv6 packets amongst the guests and router ports. Similar to IPv4, there is no special configuration or setup required to enable the dataplane to properly forward packets from the source to the destination using IPv6. Note that these dataplanes will forward Link-local Address (LLA) packets between hosts on the same network just fine without any participation or setup by OpenStack components after the ports are all connected and MAC addresses learned.

Warning

The only exception to this is the setting of the MTU value on the network an IPv6 subnet is created on. If the MTU is less than 1280 octets (the minimum link MTU value specified in RFC 8200), then it could lead to issues configuring both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses on the network, leaving the subnets unusable. For that reason, the API validates the MTU value when subnets are created to avoid this issue.

Addresses for subnets¶

There are three methods currently implemented for a subnet to get its cidr in OpenStack:

Direct assignment during subnet creation via command line or Horizon
Referencing a subnet pool during subnet creation
Using a Prefix Delegation (PD) client to request a prefix for a subnet from a PD server

In the future, additional techniques could be used to allocate subnets to projects, for example, use of an external IPAM module.

Address modes for ports¶

Note

An external DHCPv6 server in theory could override the full address OpenStack assigns based on the EUI-64 address, but that would not be wise as it would not be consistent through the system.

IPv6 supports three different addressing schemes for address configuration and for providing optional network information.

Stateless Address Auto Configuration (SLAAC): Address configuration using Router Advertisements.
DHCPv6-stateless: Address configuration using Router Advertisements and optional information using DHCPv6.
DHCPv6-stateful: Address configuration and optional information using DHCPv6.

OpenStack can be setup such that OpenStack Networking directly provides Router Advertisements, DHCP relay and DHCPv6 address and optional information for their networks or this can be delegated to external routers and services based on the drivers that are in use. There are two neutron subnet attributes - ipv6_ra_mode and ipv6_address_mode – that determine how IPv6 addressing and network information is provided to project instances:

ipv6_ra_mode: Determines who sends Router Advertisements.
ipv6_address_mode: Determines how instances obtain IPv6 address, default gateway, or optional information.

For the above two attributes to be effective, enable_dhcp of the subnet object must be set to True.

Warning

When updating a network which already has bound ports with a subnet in which Autonomous Address Configuration is enabled (Stateless Address Auto Configuration, DHCPv6-stateless) the ports will be updated with the new address. This will not happen if the subnet is DHCPv6-stateful. The same is true for the case when the ports are bound with an IPv6 subnet (the network has no other IPv4 subnet), and an IPv4 subnet is added later, the ports will not be updated.

For more details see the bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/neutron/+bug/1719806.

A workaround is to manually update the port with fixed_ips and add the subnet in the request.

Using SLAAC for addressing¶

When using SLAAC, the currently supported combinations for ipv6_ra_mode and ipv6_address_mode are as follows.

ipv6_ra_mode	ipv6_address_mode	Result
Not specified.	SLAAC	Addresses are assigned using EUI-64, and an external router will be used for routing.
SLAAC	SLAAC	Address are assigned using EUI-64, and OpenStack Networking provides routing.

Setting SLAAC for ipv6_ra_mode configures the neutron router with an radvd agent to send Router Advertisements. The list below captures the values set for the address configuration flags in the Router Advertisement messages in this scenario.

Autonomous Address Configuration Flag = 1
Managed Address Configuration Flag = 0
Other Configuration Flag = 0

New or existing neutron networks that contain a SLAAC enabled IPv6 subnet will result in all neutron ports attached to the network receiving IPv6 addresses. This is because when Router Advertisement messages are multicast on a neutron network, they are received by all IPv6 capable ports on the network, and each port will then configure an IPv6 address based on the information contained in the Router Advertisement messages. In some cases, an IPv6 SLAAC address will be added to a port, in addition to other IPv4 and IPv6 addresses that the port already has been assigned.

Note

If a router is not created and added to the subnet, SLAAC addressing will not succeed for instances since no Router Advertisement messages will be generated.

DHCPv6¶

For DHCPv6, the currently supported combinations are as follows:

ipv6_ra_mode	ipv6_address_mode	Result
DHCPv6-stateless	DHCPv6-stateless	Addresses are assigned through Router Advertisements (see SLAAC above) and optional information is delivered through DHCPv6.
DHCPv6-stateful	DHCPv6-stateful	Addresses and optional information are assigned using DHCPv6.

Setting DHCPv6-stateless for ipv6_ra_mode configures the neutron router with an radvd agent to send Router Advertisements. The list below captures the values set for the address configuration flags in the Router Advertisement messages in this scenario. Similarly, setting DHCPv6-stateless for ipv6_address_mode configures neutron DHCP implementation to provide the additional network information.

Autonomous Address Configuration Flag = 1
Managed Address Configuration Flag = 0
Other Configuration Flag = 1

Setting DHCPv6-stateful for ipv6_ra_mode configures the neutron router with an radvd agent to send Router Advertisements. The list below captures the values set for the address configuration flags in the Router Advertisements messages in this scenario. Similarly, setting DHCPv6-stateful for ipv6_address_mode configures neutron DHCP implementation to provide addresses and additional network information through DHCPv6.

Autonomous Address Configuration Flag = 0
Managed Address Configuration Flag = 1
Other Configuration Flag = 0

Note

If a router is not created and added to the subnet, DHCPv6 addressing will not succeed for instances since no Router Advertisement messages will be generated.

Note

If the M flag is set to 1, the O flag can be either 1 or 0. This is because the O flag can be ignored when the M flag is set to 1, as mentioned in RFC 4861 below:

“If the M flag is set, the O flag is redundant and can be ignored because DHCPv6 will return all available configuration information.”

For this reason, the neutron-generated advertisements will have the M flag set to 1 and the O flag set to 0.

Router support¶

The behavior of the neutron router for IPv6 is different than for IPv4 in a few ways.

Internal router ports, that act as default gateway ports for a network, will share a common port for all IPv6 subnets associated with the network. This implies that there will be an IPv6 internal router interface with multiple IPv6 addresses from each of the IPv6 subnets associated with the network and a separate IPv4 internal router interface for the IPv4 subnet. On the other hand, external router ports are allowed to have a dual-stack configuration with both an IPv4 and an IPv6 address assigned to them.

Neutron project networks that are assigned Global Unicast Address (GUA) prefixes and addresses don’t require NAT on the neutron router external gateway port to access the outside world. As a consequence of the lack of NAT the external router port doesn’t require a GUA to send and receive to the external networks. This implies a GUA IPv6 subnet prefix is not necessarily needed for the neutron external network. By default, a IPv6 LLA associated with the external gateway port can be used for routing purposes. To handle this scenario, the implementation of router-gateway-set API in neutron has been modified so that an IPv6 subnet is not required for the external network that is associated with the neutron router. The LLA address of the upstream router can be learned in two ways.

In the absence of an upstream Router Advertisement message, the ipv6_gateway flag can be set with the external router gateway LLA in the neutron L3 agent configuration file. This also requires that no subnet is associated with that port.
The upstream router can send a Router Advertisement and the neutron router will automatically learn the next-hop LLA, provided again that no subnet is assigned and the ipv6_gateway flag is not set.

Effectively the ipv6_gateway flag takes precedence over a Router Advertisements that is received from the upstream router. If it is desired to use a GUA next hop that is accomplished by allocating a subnet to the external router port and assigning the upstream routers GUA address as the gateway for the subnet.

Note

It should be possible for projects to communicate with each other on an isolated network (a network without a router port) using LLA with little to no participation on the part of OpenStack. The authors of this section have not proven that to be true for all scenarios.

Note

When using the neutron L3 agent in a configuration where it is auto-configuring an IPv6 address via SLAAC, and the agent is learning its default IPv6 route from the ICMPv6 Router Advertisement, it may be necessary to set the net.ipv6.conf.<physical_interface>.accept_ra sysctl to the value 2 in order for routing to function correctly. For a more detailed description, please see the bug.

Neutron’s Distributed Router feature and IPv6¶

IPv6 does work when the Distributed Virtual Router functionality is enabled, but all ingress/egress traffic is via the centralized router (hence, not distributed). More work is required to fully enable this functionality.

Advanced services¶

VPNaaS¶

VPNaaS supports IPv6, but support in Kilo and prior releases will have some bugs that may limit how it can be used. More thorough and complete testing and bug fixing is being done as part of the Liberty release. IPv6-based VPN-as-a-Service is configured similar to the IPv4 configuration. Either or both the peer_address and the peer_cidr can specified as an IPv6 address. The choice of addressing modes and router modes described above should not impact support.

FWaaS¶

FWaaS allows creation of IPv6 based rules.

NAT & Floating IPs¶

At the current time OpenStack Networking does not provide any facility to support any flavor of NAT with IPv6. Unlike IPv4 there is no current embedded support for floating IPs with IPv6. It is assumed that the IPv6 addressing amongst the projects is using GUAs with no overlap across the projects.

Security considerations¶

For more information about security considerations, see the Security groups section in OpenStack Networking.

Configuring interfaces of the guest¶

OpenStack currently doesn’t support the Privacy Extensions defined by RFC 4941, or the Opaque Identifier generation methods defined in RFC 7217. The interface identifier and DUID used must be directly derived from the MAC address as described in RFC 2373. The compute instances must not be set up to utilize either of these methods when generating their interface identifier, or they might not be able to communicate properly on the network. For example, in Linux guests, these are controlled via these two sysctl variables:

net.ipv6.conf.*.use_tempaddr (Privacy Extensions)

This allows the use of non-changing interface identifiers for IPv6 addresses according to RFC3041 semantics. It should be disabled (zero) so that stateless addresses are constructed using a stable, EUI64-based value.

net.ipv6.conf.*.addr_gen_mode

This defines how link-local and auto-configured IPv6 addresses are generated. It should be set to zero (default) so that IPv6 addresses are generated using an EUI64-based value.

Note

Support for addr_gen_mode was added in kernel version 4.11.

Other types of guests might have similar configuration options, please consult your distribution documentation for more information.

Unlike IPv4, the MTU of a given network can be conveyed in both the Router Advertisement messages sent by the router, as well as in DHCP messages.

OpenStack control & management network considerations¶

As of the Kilo release, considerable effort has gone in to ensuring the project network can handle dual stack IPv6 and IPv4 transport across the variety of configurations described above. OpenStack control network can be run in a dual stack configuration and OpenStack API endpoints can be accessed via an IPv6 network. At this time, Open vSwitch (OVS) tunnel types - STT, VXLAN, GRE, support both IPv4 and IPv6 endpoints.

Prefix delegation¶

Warning

This feature is experimental with low test coverage, and the Dibbler client which is used for this feature is no longer maintained. For details see: https://github.com/tomaszmrugalski/dibbler#project-status

From the Liberty release onwards, OpenStack Networking supports IPv6 prefix delegation. This section describes the configuration and workflow steps necessary to use IPv6 prefix delegation to provide automatic allocation of subnet CIDRs. This allows you as the OpenStack administrator to rely on an external (to the OpenStack Networking service) DHCPv6 server to manage your project network prefixes.

Note

Prefix delegation became available in the Liberty release, it is not available in the Kilo release. HA and DVR routers are not currently supported by this feature.

Configuring OpenStack Networking for prefix delegation¶

To enable prefix delegation, edit the /etc/neutron/neutron.conf file.

ipv6_pd_enabled = True

Note

If you are not using the default dibbler-based driver for prefix delegation, then you also need to set the driver in /etc/neutron/neutron.conf:

pd_dhcp_driver = <class path to driver>

Drivers other than the default one may require extra configuration.

This tells OpenStack Networking to use the prefix delegation mechanism for subnet allocation when the user does not provide a CIDR or subnet pool id when creating a subnet.

Requirements¶

To use this feature, you need a prefix delegation capable DHCPv6 server that is reachable from your OpenStack Networking node(s). This could be software running on the OpenStack Networking node(s) or elsewhere, or a physical router. For the purposes of this guide we are using the open-source DHCPv6 server, Dibbler. Dibbler is available in many Linux package managers, or from source at tomaszmrugalski/dibbler.

When using the reference implementation of the OpenStack Networking prefix delegation driver, Dibbler must also be installed on your OpenStack Networking node(s) to serve as a DHCPv6 client. Version 1.0.1 or higher is required.

This guide assumes that you are running a Dibbler server on the network node where the external network bridge exists. If you already have a prefix delegation capable DHCPv6 server in place, then you can skip the following section.

Configuring the Dibbler server¶

After installing Dibbler, edit the /etc/dibbler/server.conf file:

script "/var/lib/dibbler/pd-server.sh"

iface "br-ex" {
    pd-class {
        pd-pool 2001:db8:2222::/48
        pd-length 64
    }
}

The options used in the configuration file above are:

script Points to a script to be run when a prefix is delegated or released. This is only needed if you want instances on your subnets to have external network access. More on this below.
iface The name of the network interface on which to listen for prefix delegation messages.
pd-pool The larger prefix from which you want your delegated prefixes to come. The example given is sufficient if you do not need external network access, otherwise a unique globally routable prefix is necessary.
pd-length The length that delegated prefixes will be. This must be 64 to work with the current OpenStack Networking reference implementation.

To provide external network access to your instances, your Dibbler server also needs to create new routes for each delegated prefix. This is done using the script file named in the config file above. Edit the /var/lib/dibbler/pd-server.sh file:

if [ "$PREFIX1" != "" ]; then
    if [ "$1" == "add" ]; then
        sudo ip -6 route add ${PREFIX1}/64 via $REMOTE_ADDR dev $IFACE
    fi
    if [ "$1" == "delete" ]; then
        sudo ip -6 route del ${PREFIX1}/64 via $REMOTE_ADDR dev $IFACE
    fi
fi

The variables used in the script file above are:

$PREFIX1 The prefix being added/deleted by the Dibbler server.
$1 The operation being performed.
$REMOTE_ADDR The IP address of the requesting Dibbler client.
$IFACE The network interface upon which the request was received.

The above is all you need in this scenario, but more information on installing, configuring, and running Dibbler is available in the Dibbler user guide, at Dibbler – a portable DHCPv6.

To start your Dibbler server, run:

# dibbler-server run

Or to run in headless mode:

# dibbler-server start

When using DevStack, it is important to start your server after the stack.sh script has finished to ensure that the required network interfaces have been created.

User workflow¶

First, create a network and IPv6 subnet:

$ openstack network create ipv6-pd
+---------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| Field                     | Value                                |
+---------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| admin_state_up            | UP                                   |
| availability_zone_hints   |                                      |
| availability_zones        |                                      |
| created_at                | 2017-01-25T19:26:01Z                 |
| description               |                                      |
| headers                   |                                      |
| id                        | 4b782725-6abe-4a2d-b061-763def1bb029 |
| ipv4_address_scope        | None                                 |
| ipv6_address_scope        | None                                 |
| mtu                       | 1450                                 |
| name                      | ipv6-pd                              |
| port_security_enabled     | True                                 |
| project_id                | 61b7eba037fd41f29cfba757c010faff     |
| provider:network_type     | vxlan                                |
| provider:physical_network | None                                 |
| provider:segmentation_id  | 46                                   |
| revision_number           | 3                                    |
| router:external           | Internal                             |
| shared                    | False                                |
| status                    | ACTIVE                               |
| subnets                   |                                      |
| tags                      | []                                   |
| updated_at                | 2017-01-25T19:26:01Z                 |
+---------------------------+--------------------------------------+

$ openstack subnet create --ip-version 6 --ipv6-ra-mode slaac \
--ipv6-address-mode slaac --use-prefix-delegation \
--network ipv6-pd ipv6-pd-1
+------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| Field                  | Value                                |
+------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| allocation_pools       | ::1-::ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff            |
| cidr                   | ::/64                                |
| created_at             | 2017-01-25T19:31:53Z                 |
| description            |                                      |
| dns_nameservers        |                                      |
| dns_publish_fixed_ip   | None                                 |
| enable_dhcp            | True                                 |
| gateway_ip             | ::                                   |
| headers                |                                      |
| host_routes            |                                      |
| id                     | 1319510d-c92c-4532-bf5d-8bcf3da761a1 |
| ip_version             | 6                                    |
| ipv6_address_mode      | slaac                                |
| ipv6_ra_mode           | slaac                                |
| name                   | ipv6-pd-1                            |
| network_id             | 4b782725-6abe-4a2d-b061-763def1bb029 |
| project_id             | 61b7eba037fd41f29cfba757c010faff     |
| revision_number        | 2                                    |
| service_types          |                                      |
| subnetpool_id          | prefix_delegation                    |
| tags                   |                                      |
| updated_at             | 2017-01-25T19:31:53Z                 |
+------------------------+--------------------------------------+

The subnet is initially created with a temporary CIDR before one can be assigned by prefix delegation. Any number of subnets with this temporary CIDR can exist without raising an overlap error. The subnetpool_id is automatically set to prefix_delegation.

To trigger the prefix delegation process, create a router interface between this subnet and a router with an active interface on the external network:

$ openstack router add subnet router1 ipv6-pd-1

The prefix delegation mechanism then sends a request via the external network to your prefix delegation server, which replies with the delegated prefix. The subnet is then updated with the new prefix, including issuing new IP addresses to all ports:

$ openstack subnet show ipv6-pd-1
+-------------------+--------------------------------------+
| Field             | Value                                |
+-------------------+--------------------------------------+
| allocation_pools  | 2001:db8:2222:6977::2-2001:db8:2222: |
|                   | 6977:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff             |
| cidr              | 2001:db8:2222:6977::/64              |
| created_at        | 2017-01-25T19:31:53Z                 |
| description       |                                      |
| dns_nameservers   |                                      |
| enable_dhcp       | True                                 |
| gateway_ip        | 2001:db8:2222:6977::1                |
| host_routes       |                                      |
| id                | 1319510d-c92c-4532-bf5d-8bcf3da761a1 |
| ip_version        | 6                                    |
| ipv6_address_mode | slaac                                |
| ipv6_ra_mode      | slaac                                |
| name              | ipv6-pd-1                            |
| network_id        | 4b782725-6abe-4a2d-b061-763def1bb029 |
| project_id        | 61b7eba037fd41f29cfba757c010faff     |
| revision_number   | 4                                    |
| service_types     |                                      |
| subnetpool_id     | prefix_delegation                    |
| tags              | []                                   |
| updated_at        | 2017-01-25T19:35:26Z                 |
+-------------------+--------------------------------------+

If the prefix delegation server is configured to delegate globally routable prefixes and setup routes, then any instance with a port on this subnet should now have external network access.

Deleting the router interface causes the subnet to be reverted to the temporary CIDR, and all ports have their IPs updated. Prefix leases are released and renewed automatically as necessary.

References¶

The following presentation from the Barcelona Summit provides a great guide for setting up IPv6 with OpenStack: Deploying IPv6 in OpenStack Environments.

IPv6

IPv6¶

Neutron subnets and the IPv6 API attributes¶

IPv6 addressing¶

Router advertisements¶

ipv6_ra_mode and ipv6_address_mode combinations¶

Project network considerations¶

Dataplane¶

Addresses for subnets¶

Address modes for ports¶

Using SLAAC for addressing¶

DHCPv6¶

Router support¶

Neutron’s Distributed Router feature and IPv6¶

Advanced services¶

VPNaaS¶

FWaaS¶

NAT & Floating IPs¶

Security considerations¶

Configuring interfaces of the guest¶

OpenStack control & management network considerations¶

Prefix delegation¶

Configuring OpenStack Networking for prefix delegation¶

Requirements¶

Configuring the Dibbler server¶

User workflow¶

References¶

Neutron 25.0.1.dev19

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