Use the API to manage IPv6 networks

1 Use cases of Abiquo IPv6
2 Preparation for Abiquo IPv6
- 2.1 Router advertisement system for all networks
- 2.2 DHCP v6 service
3 Configure IP address generation
4 Create a network under IPv6
5 IPs in IPv6 networks
- 5.1 Create an IP with a manually entered address
  - 5.1.1 Enter IPv6 address for non-strict private networks
  - 5.1.2 Enter IPv6 address for non-strict public and external networks
- 5.2 Create an IP with an automatically generated address
  - 5.2.1 Automatically generated address for private networks
  - 5.2.2 Automatically generated address for public and external networks
    - 5.2.2.1 Placeholder IPs for strict external or public networks

Use cases of Abiquo IPv6

There are two main use cases for IPv6 in Abiquo: Automatic generation of IPv6 address and Manual entry of IPv6 address. These two use cases are distinguished in Abiquo by the strict parameter. When strict = true, Abiquo enforces EUI-64 IP address generation.

	Abiquo automatically generates IPv6 address

	Abiquo automatically generates IPv6 address
Description	Abiquo can automatically generate the host-specific part of the IP to the EUI-64 standard Abiquo uses the MAC of the virtual machine to automatically generate the Host ID When the MAC is not yet available from the hypervisor (prior to deploy of public and external networks), Abiquo supplies a placeholder IP The placeholder IP: displays as a question mark "?" will be replaced with a real IP when the virtual machine is deployed
Strict network?	Network parameter strict = true
Router advertisement system	You must always configure the network in the router advertisement system for all IPv6 network types Unmanaged networks will usually receive their IPv6 addresses from the router advertisement system Public, external and private strict networks can also receive stateless IPv6 addresses from this system based on their MACs the DHCP server is not required, because Abiquo will generate and display the same IP addresses as the router advertisement system
DHCPv6	In general, DHCPv6 is required to supply DNS information to the virtual machines DHCPv6 can be used to supply IPv6 addresses to the virtual machines The addresses generated by the router advertisement system from the MACs of the virtual machines should be the same as those generated by DHCPv6 When a router advertisement system is used to assign the IPv6 address, the correct addresses should still be displayed in Abiquo
Placeholder IPs	EUI-64 requires the MAC from the hypervisor A placeholder IP is used until the MAC is provided by the hypervisor at deploy time The placeholder IP is represented by a "?"

	User may manually enter IPv6 address

	User may manually enter IPv6 address
Description	You can manually enter an IPv6 address in Abiquo This address must be valid for the IPv6 network Cloud users can select from these IPv6 addresses when configuring their virtual machines
Strict network?	Network parameter strict = false
Router advertisement system	You must always configure the network in the router advertisement system for all IPv6 network types
DHCPv6	DHCPv6 service is required to supply IPv6 addresses and DNS information to the virtual machines DHCPv6-ready templates are required: Windows: configure DUID in registry Unix: configure dhcpv6 client and firewall/security The DHCPv6 service can assign static addresses 1 x IPv6 address to a Windows virtual machine Multiple IPv6 addresses to a Unix virtual machine with appropriate template configuration
Automatic IPv6 generation is also supported	Abiquo can also automatically generate an IPv6 address for non-strict private, public and external networks If the MAC is available, generate an IPv6 address in EUI-64 format If the MAC is not available, (prior to deploy in external or public networks), generate a random IPv6 address

Preparation for Abiquo IPv6

Router advertisement system for all networks

When you create networks in Abiquo 2.6.2, you must configure the networks in your router advertisement system. For unmanaged networks, you would usually configure your virtual machines to receive their IP addresses from this system.

In effect, with strict networks where the allocation of EUI64 addresses is enforced, the addresses that will be assigned by the router advertisement system based on the MAC are predictable. So the address generated and displayed in Abiquo should be the same as the one allocated by the router advertisement system. This means that the DHCP is not necessary for strict networks

DHCP v6 service

Configure a DHCPv6 service for non-strict private, external and public networks. The DHCPv6 service is integrated as a remote service in your Abiquo datacenters. In Abiquo 2.6.2, you cannot set up this service while you are creating a datacenter; you must add the service to your new datacenter using the GUI or the API.

Add DHCP v6 via API

To add a DHCPv6 remote service, modify the following API request for your system and run it. Note that the remote service type is "DHCPv6".

curl --verbose -X POST -u admin:xabiquo -H "Content-type: application/vnd.abiquo.remoteservice+json" \
     http://example.com/api/admin/datacenters/1/remoteservices \
     -d '{
  "status": 1, 
  "type": "DHCPv6", 
  "uri": "omapi://dhcpv6.example.com:7911"
}'

Configure IP address generation

When you create a network, use the strict option to configure manual or automatic address generation. If you set strict to true, then Abiquo will automatically generate EUI64 IP addresses and you will not be able to manually generate them. To be able to manually generate IP addresses, set the strict option to false, or omit the parameter. If you do not set the strict option, the default value is false.

Create a network under IPv6

Use API requests to create IPv6 networks. Remember that you must also configure the networks in your router advertisement system.

Creating an IPv6 network via the API is similar to creating an IPv4 network but there are some changes to the network DTO, as shown in the following table.

Parameter	New	Change	Range	Description

Parameter	Range	Description
address		Network address in IPv6 format. When creating a strict private network, you cannot supply the network address because Abiquo creates a ULA network.
primaryDNS		Primary DNS in IPv6 format
gateway		Not used by IPv6, all values entered will be ignored
mask	64, 56, 48	IPv6 Network mask
ipv6	true, false	Create an IPv6 network
strict	true, false	If false, allow manual IP entry. If no value is supplied, strict is false

Create IPv6 external network request

Modify the following script and use it to create an IPv6 external network.

#!/bin/bash
curl --verbose -X POST 'http://example.com/api/admin/datacenters/1/network/' \
         -H "Accept: application/vnd.abiquo.vlan+json" \
         -H "Content-type: application/vnd.abiquo.vlan+json" \
         -u abidocs:abidocs \
         -d '{
  "address": "fd:0:0:1::", 
  "dhcpOptions": {}, 
  "gateway": "fd:0:0:1::1", 
  "ipv6": "true", 
  "links": [
    {
      "href": "http://localhost/api/admin/datacenters/1/networkservicetypes/1", 
      "rel": "networkservicetype"
    }, 
    {
      "href": "http://localhost/api/admin/enterprises/7", 
      "rel": "enterprise"
    }
  ], 
  "mask": 64, 
  "name": "ipv6-ext-abidocs", 
  "primaryDNS": "fd:0:0:1::1", 
  "strict": "false", 
  "sufixDNS": "example.com", 
  "tag": 2, 
  "type": "EXTERNAL"
}'

When the network is created successfully, the API should return the network in response. For example

{
  "address": "fd:0:0:1::", 
  "dhcpOptions": {}, 
  "gateway": "?", 
  "id": 96, 
  "ipv6": true, 
  "links": [
    {
      "href": "http://example.com:80/api/admin/datacenters/1", 
      "rel": "datacenter", "title": "API datacenter", 
      "type": "application/vnd.abiquo.datacenter+json"
    }, 
    {
      "href": "http://example.com:80/api/admin/datacenters/1/network/96", 
      "rel": "edit", "title": "ipv6-ext-01", 
      "type": "application/vnd.abiquo.vlan+json"
    }, 
    {
      "href": "http://example.com:80/api/admin/datacenters/1/networkservicetypes", 
      "rel": "networkservicetypes", "title": "network services types", 
      "type": "application/vnd.abiquo.networkservicetypes+json"
    }, 
    {
      "href": "http://example.com:80/api/admin/datacenters/1/networkservicetypes/1", 
      "rel": "networkservicetype", "title": "Service Network", 
      "type": "application/vnd.abiquo.vlan+json"
    }, 
    {
      "href": "http://example.com:80/api/admin/enterprises/7/limits/7/externalnetworks/96/ips", 
      "rel": "ips", "title": "external ips", 
      "type": "application/vnd.abiquo.externalips+json"
    }, 
    {
      "href": "http://example.com:80/api/admin/datacenters/1/network/96/ips", 
      "rel": "infrastructureips", "title": "public ips", 
      "type": "application/vnd.abiquo.externalips+json"
    }, 
    {
      "href": "http://example.com:80/api/admin/enterprises/7", 
      "rel": "enterprise", "title": "Abidocs", 
      "type": "application/vnd.abiquo.enterprise+json"
    }
  ], 
  "mask": 64, 
  "name": "ipv6-ext-01", 
  "primaryDNS": "fd:0:0:1::1", 
  "sufixDNS": "example.com", 
  "tag": 2, 
  "type": "EXTERNAL", 
  "unmanaged": false
}

Create IPv6 public network request

Modify the following script and use it to create an IPv6 public network.

Create IPv6 unmanaged network request

Modify the following script and use it to create an IPv6 unmanaged network.

IPs in IPv6 networks

The following DTO is an example of an IP in an IPv6 external network. As you can see:

there is a new field for "ipv6", which is set to "true"
the IP address is in IPv6 format

Create an IP with a manually entered address

For a non-strict network, you can create an IP and manually enter the address, as opposed to using one automatically generated by Abiquo. You cannot create IPs for unmanaged networks.

The following scripts create IPs on the different networks: using the datacenter networks link for public and external networks, and virtual datacenter and private networks link.

Enter IPv6 address for non-strict private networks

Modify the following script for your platform to create an IP with a manually assigned address for non-strict private network. Run the script and enter the network ID and the IP address.

Enter IPv6 address for non-strict public and external networks

Modify the following script for your platform to create an IP with a manually assigned address for non-strict public and external networks. Run the script and enter the network ID and IP address.

Create an IP with an automatically generated address

For a strict network you must use automatically generated IP addresses in EUI-64 format. For a non-strict network, you can choose to create an IP with an automatically generated IP. If the network is private, an EUI-64 address will be generated. If the network is public or external, a random IP address will be created.

To create an IP with an automatically generated address, post an IP DTO without the IP value set.

Automatically generated address for private networks

Modify this script for your platform to create a randomly generated IP for non-strict private networks. Run the script and enter the network ID. Abiquo will create and return a valid EUI-64 IP.

Automatically generated address for public and external networks

Modify this script to create a randomly generated IP for non-strict public and external. Run the script and enter the network ID. Abiquo will create and return a random IPv6 address.

Placeholder IPs for strict external or public networks

If you generate an IP for a strict external or public network before the virtual machine is configured in the hypervisor, Abiquo will use a placeholder IP, with an ip value of "?".

You can add the placeholder IP to a virtual machine and the real EUI64 IP address will be generated when the configuration is updated in the hypervisor.

The following DTO is an example of placeholder IP.