IPv6 use cases

There are two main use cases for IPv6 in Abiquo: Automatic generation of IPv6 address and Manual entry of IPv6 address. When you create a network, if you set strict = true,  the platform enforces EUI-64 IP address generation. 

 Strict networks

Abiquo automatically generates IPv6 address

 Strict networks

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 "?"



 Non-strict networks

User may manually enter IPv6 address

 Non-strict networks

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

A basic sample configuration for testing the Manual IP entry use case is available from Abiquo Support.

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