BGP-MPLS IP Virtual Private Network (VPN) Extension for IPv6 VPN
RFC 4659

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Network Working Group                                       J. De Clercq
Request for Comments: 4659                                       Alcatel
Category: Standards Track                                        D. Ooms
                                                              OneSparrow
                                                               M. Carugi
                                                         Nortel Networks
                                                          F. Le Faucheur
                                                           Cisco Systems
                                                          September 2006

    BGP-MPLS IP Virtual Private Network (VPN) Extension for IPv6 VPN

Status of This Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

Abstract

   This document describes a method by which a Service Provider may use
   its packet-switched backbone to provide Virtual Private Network (VPN)
   services for its IPv6 customers.  This method reuses, and extends
   where necessary, the "BGP/MPLS IP VPN" method 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".

   This document defines support of the IPv6 VPN service over both an
   IPv4 and an IPv6 backbone, and for using various tunneling techniques
   over the core, including MPLS, IP-in-IP, Generic Routing
   Encapsulation (GRE) and IPsec protected tunnels.  The inter-working
   between an IPv4 site and an IPv6 site is outside the scope of this
   document.

De Clercq, et al.           Standards Track                     [Page 1]
RFC 4659         BGP-MPLS IP VPN Extension for IPv6 VPN   September 2006

Table of Contents

   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 .....................................6
           3.2.1. BGP Next Hop encoding ...............................6
                  3.2.1.1. BGP Speaker Requesting IPv6 Transport ......7
                  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 ......................................................11
   7. Carriers' Carriers .............................................11
   8. Multi-AS Backbones .............................................11
   9. Accessing the Internet from a VPN ..............................13
   10. Management VPN ................................................14
   11. Security Considerations .......................................14
   12. Quality of Service ............................................15
   13. Scalability ...................................................15
   14. IANA Considerations ...........................................15
   15. Acknowledgements ..............................................15
   16. References ....................................................16
      16.1. Normative References .....................................16
      16.2. Informative References ...................................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 [BGP/MPLS-VPN] for support of IPv6.  In particular, this
   method uses the same "peer model" as [BGP/MPLS-VPN], 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
   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