Adding a whole IPv6 /64 block to an network interface on debian

I tried adding a whole IPv6 (/64) block to an interface using

ip route add local 2001:41d0:2:ad64::/64 dev lo

like described here on my Debian server, but I seem to be missing something.

If I ping for example 2001:41d0:2:ad64::fe locally everything works just fine, but if I try from a remote machine it does not work. I then tried adding the route on eth0:

ip route add local 2001::41d0:2:ad64::/64 dev eth0

Now I couldn't even ping any example address locally!

I'm a bit lost since I seem to be missing something but I can't find the answer here.

For short: I want 2001:41d0:2:ad64::/64 to be bound to eth0 so that every IP this block is containing will be reachable from the internet on my machine.

I hope someone out there can point me the right way. Thanks in advance.

The guide provided by the ISP does require me to add each IPv6 to the interface explictly. I want it to be implict.

Working configuration with explict ip address binding

/etc/network/interfaces:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address my.ip.v4
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network my.network.address.ip
        broadcast my.broadcast.address.ip
        gateway my.gateway.ip

iface eth0 inet6 static
        address 2001:41d0:2:ad64::fe
        netmask 64
        gateway 2001:41d0:2:adff:ff:ff:ff:ff
        up ip addr add 2001:41d0:2:ad64::1/64 dev eth0
        down ip addr del 2001:41d0:2:ad64::1/64 dev eth0
        up ip addr add 2001:41d0:2:ad64::2/64 dev eth0
        down ip addr del 2001:41d0:2:ad64::2/64 dev eth0
        up ip addr add 2001:41d0:2:ad64::3/64 dev eth0
        down ip addr del 2001:41d0:2:ad64::3/64 dev eth0
        up ip addr add 2001:41d0:2:ad64::4/64 dev eth0
        down ip addr del 2001:41d0:2:ad64::4/64 dev eth0
        up ip addr add 2001:41d0:2:ad64::5/64 dev eth0
        down ip addr del 2001:41d0:2:ad64::5/64 dev eth0
        up ip addr add 2001:41d0:2:ad64::6/64 dev eth0
        down ip addr del 2001:41d0:2:ad64::6/64 dev eth0
        up ip addr add 2001:41d0:2:ad64::7/64 dev eth0
        down ip addr del 2001:41d0:2:ad64::7/64 dev eth0
        up ip addr add 2001:41d0:2:ad64::8/64 dev eth0
        down ip addr del 2001:41d0:2:ad64::8/64 dev eth0
        up ip addr add 2001:41d0:2:ad64::9/64 dev eth0
        down ip addr del 2001:41d0:2:ad64::9/64 dev eth0
        up ip addr add 2001:41d0:2:ad64::a/64 dev eth0
        down ip addr del 2001:41d0:2:ad64::a/64 dev eth0

Solution try #1

I tried reenableing the local route as @kasperd suggested.

Content of my /etc/network/interfaces

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
    post-up ip route add local 2001:41d0:2:ad64::/64 dev lo
    pre-down ip route del local 2001:41d0:2:ad64::/64 dev lo

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        # <snip of ipv4 config>

iface eth0 inet6 static
        address 2001:41d0:2:ad64::fe
        netmask 64
        gateway 2001:41d0:2:adff:ff:ff:ff:ff

Local routing table:

# ip -6 route show table local
local ::1 dev lo  proto none  metric 0
local 2001:41d0:2:ad64::fe dev lo  proto none  metric 0
local 2001:41d0:2:ad64::/64 dev lo  metric 1024
local fe80::225:90ff:fe06:6bbe dev lo  proto none  metric 0
ff00::/8 dev eth0  metric 256

Output of traceroute (my local home PC):

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  fritz.box [xxx]

  2    20 ms    21 ms    24 ms  2002:c058:6301::1
  3    21 ms    22 ms    24 ms  10gigabitethernet6.switch2.fra1.he.net [2001:470
:0:150::1]
  4    44 ms    31 ms    40 ms  100ge3-1.core1.ams1.he.net [2001:470:0:2d4::1]
  5     *        *        *     Zeitüberschreitung der Anforderung.
  6     *        *       35 ms  ams-5-6k.nl.eu [2001:41d0::8d1]
  7    37 ms    39 ms    36 ms  rbx-g2-a9.fr.eu [2001:41d0::ab1]
  8    37 ms    70 ms    36 ms  chi-3-4m.il.us [2001:41d0::176]
  9  Zielhost nicht erreichbar.

Ablaufverfolgung beendet.

traceroute6 on server:

traceroute to 2001:41d0:2:ad64::23 (2001:41d0:2:ad64::23), 30 hops max, 80 byte packets
 1  2001:41d0:2:ad64::a (2001:41d0:2:ad64::a)  0.028 ms  0.009 ms  0.008 ms

ping6 on server:

PING 2001:41d0:2:ad64::23(2001:41d0:2:ad64::23) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 2001:41d0:2:ad64::23: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.029 ms
64 bytes from 2001:41d0:2:ad64::23: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.057 ms
^C
--- 2001:41d0:2:ad64:23 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.029/0.043/0.057/0.014 ms

tcpdump output (while pinging and tracerouting on remote server):

tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
listening on eth0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 65535 bytes

tracert to the gateway:

Routenverfolgung zu vss-3-6k.fr.eu [2001:41d0:2:adff:ff:ff:ff:ff] über maximal 3
0 Abschnitte:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  fritz.box [2002:5476:1b4c:0:c225:6ff:fe40:b2b0]

  2    23 ms    22 ms    26 ms  2002:c058:6301::1
  3    24 ms    40 ms    23 ms  10gigabitethernet6.switch2.fra1.he.net [2001:470
:0:150::1]
  4    28 ms    37 ms    39 ms  100ge3-1.core1.ams1.he.net [2001:470:0:2d4::1]
  5     *        *        *     Zeitüberschreitung der Anforderung.
  6    38 ms    33 ms     *     ams-5-6k.nl.eu [2001:41d0::8d1]
  7    36 ms    39 ms    38 ms  rbx-g2-a9.fr.eu [2001:41d0::ab1]
  8    36 ms    35 ms    35 ms  vss-3-6k.fr.eu [2001:41d0:2:adff:ff:ff:ff:ff]

Ablaufverfolgung beendet.

ping to the gateway:

Ping wird ausgeführt für 2001:41d0:2:adff:ff:ff:ff:ff mit 32 Bytes Daten:
Antwort von 2001:41d0:2:adff:ff:ff:ff:ff: Zeit=36ms
Antwort von 2001:41d0:2:adff:ff:ff:ff:ff: Zeit=34ms
Antwort von 2001:41d0:2:adff:ff:ff:ff:ff: Zeit=38ms
Antwort von 2001:41d0:2:adff:ff:ff:ff:ff: Zeit=57ms

Ping-Statistik für 2001:41d0:2:adff:ff:ff:ff:ff:
    Pakete: Gesendet = 4, Empfangen = 4, Verloren = 0
    (0% Verlust),
Ca. Zeitangaben in Millisek.:
    Minimum = 34ms, Maximum = 57ms, Mittelwert = 41ms

So it's still just working locally (server) but not from remote (my pc).


Solution 1:

I have needed something similar in the past. I found that there are three steps needed to get this working:

  • You need to route a prefix to the host
  • You need a local route on the host
  • Applications need to set the IP_FREEBIND or IP_TRANSPARENT option on sockets

The proper way to get a prefix routed to the host involves contacting your provider, if they do not already provide you one. They may have a DHCPv6 server, which can delegate a prefix to you, if you just send the right DHCPv6 request to it.

If a real routed prefix is for some reason impossible for you to get, but you have access to use as many addresses as you want from a link prefix available on one of your network interfaces, you can turn part of that into a routed prefix by having a daemon respond to neighbor discovery requests for every IPv6 address in that range.

Using such a daemon is not recommended other than as a last resort, since it will needlessly consume memory from all your neighbors. There are a few implementations of such a daemon, one that looks promissing is ndppd. (I have no specific experience with it, since I only learned about it after I had written my own with my link prefix hardcoded.)

It looks like you already got the local route working. As you noticed, it has to be assigned to the lo interface in order to work.

Finally the applications using addresses from this range need an IP option in order to be able to bind to addresses, which are not explicitly assigned to a specific network interface on the host. Here is a code fragment, that can be used:

const int one = 1;
setsockopt(fd, SOL_IP, IP_FREEBIND, &one, sizeof(one));

Solution 2:

It's 2019 year now. One word: ip_nonlocal_bind (since 4.3 kernel as i may know).

Use ndppd + sysctl net.ipv6.ip_nonlocal_bind = 1, last one allows you to bind to any IPv6 address(no IP_FREEBIND needed in this case).

Guess you did so:

ip add add local 2001::41d0:2:ad64::/64 dev lo
ip route add local 2001::41d0:2:ad64::/64 dev eth0
sysctl  net.ipv6.ip_nonlocal_bind = 1

ndppd.conf will look like:

route-ttl 30000

proxy eth0 {

   router no

   timeout 500
   ttl 30000
   rule 2001::41d0:2:ad64::/64{
       static
   }
}

run ndppd and now you can bind to any address(of added block) and use it as it added itself.