IPv6 tunnel technologies

Dug Out

Conclusions

If you have the choice, you should always opt for native IPv6 connections. Unfortunately, that is only possible in the rarest of cases so far. IPv6 tunnels are thus frequently the only option that IPv6 systems have for connecting. Depending on the application, the various tunneling solutions presented in this article each have their advantages and disadvantages.

In principle, however, none of these tunneling mechanisms is designed for the long term – ultimately, all tunnels will be replaced at some time by native IPv6 connections. This factor should also be taken into account when planning a migration, because removing a well-established tunnel mechanism in a few years may well involve additional overhead.

Besides the technologies presented here, tunnel brokers (e.g., SixXS) can give the end user the ability to access IPv6 systems on the Internet through various technologies, including tunnel client software. Again, these approaches are ultimately just interim solutions designed to bridge the period up to the deployment of native IPv6 connections. In some cases, however, an interim fix can turn out to be the best permanent solution.

Infos

Investigating the IPv6 Teredo Tunnelling Capability and Performance of Internet Clients: http://www.sigcomm.org/sites/default/files/ccr/papers/2012/October/2378956-2378959.pdf
RFC 3056 (Connection of IPv6 Domains via IPv4 Clouds): http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3056.txt
6rd for Linux: http://www.litech.org/6rd/
ISATAP for Linux: http://www.saschahlusiak.de/linux/isatap.htm
Teredo for Linux: http://www.remlab.net/miredo/

The Author

Eric Amberg is the managing director of ATRACON GmbH (http://www.atracon.de). He has worked for many years in the field of IT infrastructure as a trainer and consultant, and he has years of project experience. In his seminars, he places great emphasis on practical training.

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