Tag Archives: DHCPv6

DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation

What is DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation? Coming from IPv4, you’re already familiar with DHCP (for IPv4) which hands out IPv4 addresses to clients. The same applies to (stateful) DHCPv6: it hands out IPv6 addresses to clients.

However, with IPv6 we’re heavily dealing with subnets rather than just single addresses. Again, you’re familiar with IPv4: For an IPv4-based ISP connection, you’re getting either a single public IPv4 address or a small subnet such as a /29, /28, or the like for your WAN interface. For an IPv6-based ISP connection, you’re getting a subnet which includes multiple unique subnets to be used for other layer 3 segments rather than a single address (with NAT on the CPE). This is where DHCPv6 prefix delegation (commonly abbreviated as DHCPv6-PD) kicks in: It hands out IPv6 subnets to routers.

Let’s have a closer look:

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Stateful DHCPv6 Capture (along with Relaying)

For my IPv6 training classes, I was missing a capture of a stateful DHCPv6 address assignment. That is: M-flag within the RA, followed by DHCPv6 messages handing out an IPv6 address among others. Therefore, I set up a DHCPv6 server on an Infoblox grid and furthermore used a Palo Alto NGFW as a DHCPv6 relay to it. I captured on two points: from the client’s point of view (getting to the relay) and from the server’s point of view (unicast messages from the relay). And since I was already there anyway, I additionally captured the same process for DHCPv4. So, here we go:

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DHCPv6 Relay Issue with Cisco ASA and Ubuntu

Some months ago, my co-worker and I ran into an interesting issue: a notebook with a newly installed Ubuntu 20.04 does only work with IPv4, but this office network is dual-stacked (IPv4 and IPv6). Other Linux clients as well as Windows and Mac systems still work fine. They all get an IPv4 configuration by DHCPv4 and an IPv6 configuration by stateful DHCPv6 from the same DHCP server, relayed by a Cisco ASA 5500-X. What’s wrong with Ubuntu 20.04?

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Publishing IPv6 NTP Servers with DHCPv6

During the last weeks, I had an interesting request to publish NTP servers to client systems by using DHCPv6 in an IPv6 only network. Our Fortigate (or me?) had to learn how to publish the information. Hence this post is not only about NTP and IPv6, but a small guide on how to walk through RFCs and how to get out the relevant information. I’m very happy I got the possibility to share my experience here. Thank you, Johannes!

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Basic IPv6 Configuration on a FortiGate Firewall

It’s really great that the FortiGate firewalls have a DHCPv6 server implemented. With this mandatory service, IPv6-only networks can be deployed directly behind a FortiGate because the stateless DHCPv6 server provides the DNS server addresses. (This is unlike Palo Alto or Cisco which have no DHCPv6 server implemented.)

UPDATE: In the meantime Fortinet has implemented the RDNSS and DNSSL options as well. Great. Hence you don’t need DHCPv6 at all anymore to run an IPv6-only network. I updated my listings below as well.

However, the configuration on the FortiGate is really bad because nothing of the IPv6 features can be set via the GUI. (And this is called a Next-Generation Firewall? Not only the features count, but also the usability!) Everything must be done through the CLI which is sometimes hard to remember. Therefore I am publishing this memo of the appropriate CLI configuration commands.

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Juniper ScreenOS: DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation

The Juniper ScreenOS firewall is one of the seldom firewalls that implements DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation (DHCPv6-PD). It therefore fits for testing my dual stack ISP connection from Deutsche Telekom, Germany. (Refer to this post for details about this dual stack procedure.)

It was *really* hard to get the correct configuration in place. I was not able to do this by myself at all. Also Google did not help that much. Finally, I opened a case by Juniper to help me finding the configuration error. After four weeks of the opened case, I was told which command was wrong. Now it’s working. ;) Here we go.

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Telekom Dual-Stack Verbindungsaufbau

Bis neulich hatte ich einen normalen DSL-Anschluss von 1&1: Per PPPoE eingewählt und eine IPv4-Adresse bekommen – fertig. Das kann neben der FRITZ!Box natürlich auch jeder vernünftige Router oder Firewall.

Jetzt habe ich endlich einen richtigen Dual-Stack (IPv4 und IPv6) Anschluss der Telekom (Glasfaser “MagentaZuhause M” ohne Fernsehen, siehe hier). Juchu! ;) Bevor ich jedoch den mitgelieferten Speedport durch diverse andere Testgeräte ersetze, wollte ich mal vernünftig mitschneiden, welche Protokolle denn bei einem Verbindungsaufbau genau eingesetzt werden. Vor allem die Prefix Delegation über DHCPv6 interessierte mich…

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Basic IPv6 Messages: Wireshark Capture

When explaining IPv6 I am always showing a few Wireshark screenshots to give a feeling on how IPv6 looks like. Basically, the stateless autoconfiguration feature (SLAAC), DHCPv6, Neighbor Discovery, and a simple ping should be seen/understood by any network administrator before using the new protocol.

Therefore I captured the basic IPv6 autoconfiguration with a Knoppix Linux behind a Telekom Speedport router (German ISP, dual-stack) and publish this capture file here. I am using this capture to explain the basic IPv6 features.

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Firewall IPv6 Capabilities: Cisco, Forti, Juniper, Palo

Since IPv6 gets more and more important, I am using it by default on all my test firewalls, which of course support IPv6. However, when comparing the different functions and administration capabilities, they vary significantly.

Here comes my short evaluation of the IPv6 functions on the following four firewalls: Cisco ASA, Fortinet FortiGate, Juniper SSG, and Palo Alto.

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