Rule #1 – Just because Host 1 can get to Host 2, does NOT mean that Host 2 can get back to Host 1!
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this out in the field. Here is a prime example.
This is quite a simply common topology. OfficeA and OfficeB have a WAN connection running between them. RouterA and RouterB are under control of the ISP and are running OSPF. RouterC is a customer-owned router, and so doesn’t run any OSPF with RouterA or RouterB.
OfficeB has an internet connection, and RouterB is injecting a default route to OfficeA via OSPF.
RouterB has a default route to RouterC. So let’s think about traffic flow now. A host connected to RouterA needs to send traffic to the internet. It will send it’s traffic to it’s default gateway, RouterA. RouterA has a default route injected into OSPF from RouterB and so sends traffic to RouterB.
RouterB has a default route and hence sends that traffic out to RouterC. Which then goes out to the internet.
Traffic then flows back from the internet to RouterC. The return address will be an IP that belongs in RouterA and RouterB’s routing table, however RouterC has no knowledge of that subnet (as it’s not participating in OSPF). RouterC will just use it’s default route and send that packet back out to the internet. Eventually the TTL will kill that packet.
This can be fixed by putting a static route on RouterC to let it know that RouterA’s ip range needs to be sent off to RouterB instead.
A similar thing will happen if we add a server to SwitchA. That server’s default gateway will most likely be RouterC. If a host in OfficeA send a PING to that server, that server will then send traffic off to RouterC. If RouterC does not have the static route added above, it’ll send it out to the internet.
I’m well aware that the design in the picture is pretty bad, but I used it to illustrate a point. That point being that just because router’s know how to get from A to B, it does NOT mean they know how to route that traffic back. Make sure you understand this!
As promised, I’ll now start writing up solutions to my previously posted labs. I hope this will spur up some conversation. I still stress that you should always try to do the lab without my help first. This will ensure you learn how to do it properly. Also remember that there are always multiple ways to do certain labs, so don’t take my solution as gospel.
I’ll be walking through my first MPLS lab which was originally posted over here: http://mellowd.co.uk/ccie/?p=518
- Use RIP as the routing protocol on CPE devices
- CPE1 and CPE5 belong to Company_A
- CPE2 and CPE6 belong to Company_B
- Each site has a /24 that is advertised via the loopback
- CPE1 should be able to ping CPE5’s loopback and vice-versa
- CPE2 should be able to ping CPE6’s loopback and vice-versa
- Different companies should NOT be able to ping each other. They must stay completely separate
- Now remove RIP and configure it so that both companies are using OSPF
- Once complete, remove the OSPF config and use EIGRP
The first part is very easy. As far as the config on the CPE goes, it’s standard. The CPE devices don’t know, or care, that the ISP is running MPLS. As an example, I’ve posted the relevent config from CPE6:
interface Loopback0 ip address 172.16.2.1 255.255.255.0 ! interface FastEthernet0/0 ip address 10.1.4.1 255.255.255.0 duplex auto speed auto ! router rip version 2 network 10.0.0.0 network 172.16.0.0 no auto-summary
The actual core routers also have a very simple configuration. This has already been setup in my provided configuration files. All thats needed is a IGP running correctly; CEF to be enabled; and then MPLS IP to be enabled on all links going to MPLS routers. As an example, I’ll show a bit of the configuration on CR1:
ip cef ! interface FastEthernet0/0 ip address 10.0.0.5 255.255.255.252 duplex auto speed auto mpls ip ! interface Serial1/0 ip address 10.3.0.1 255.255.255.252 mpls ip serial restart-delay 0 ! router ospf 1 log-adjacency-changes network 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.3 area 0 network 10.0.0.4 0.0.0.3 area 0 network 10.2.0.0 0.0.0.3 area 0 network 10.3.0.0 0.0.0.3 area 0 network 10.255.255.2 0.0.0.0 area 0
The real meat of the configuration comes in on the AR routers. i.e. the edge MPLS routers that the CPE devices connect to. These are the routers which needs to hold the customer routing tables, as well as keeping customer networks separate from each other.
The first thing that needs to be done is to configure the VRF’s on each AR router that will connect. I’ll use the vrf name of CUS1 for the first customer and CUS2 for the second.
For the first customer:
AR1#(config)ip vrf CUS1 AR1#(config)rd 400:1 AR1#(config)route-target both 400:1
And now the second:
AR1#(config)ip vrf CUS2 AR1#(config)rd 400:2 AR1#(config)route-target both 400:2
We now need to setup the interfaces that the CPE devices will connect to:
AR1#interface FastEthernet0/0 AR1#ip vrf forwarding CUS1 AR1#ip address 10.1.1.2 255.255.255.0 AR1#interface FastEthernet2/0 AR1#ip vrf forwarding CUS2 AR1#ip address 10.1.2.2 255.255.255.0
Now it’s time to set up the routing protocol between the ISP vrf and the customer device. We are using RIP for this lab, so the configuration will be as follows for both customers:
AR1#router rip AR1#version 2 AR1#no auto-summary AR1#address-family ipv4 vrf CUS2 AR1#redistribute bgp 400 metric 10 AR1#network 10.0.0.0 AR1#no auto-summary AR1#version 2 AR1#address-family ipv4 vrf CUS1 AR1#redistribute bgp 400 metric 10 AR1#network 10.0.0.0 AR1#no auto-summary AR1#version 2
You can see in the above commands that we are redistributing BGP even though we haven’t configured BGP yet. Don’t worry, that step is next.
MPLS used MP-BGP for the MPLS VPN feature. i.e. it uses MP-BGP to distribute routes via each customers VRF, through the core, and then out the other side.
The first part of the MP-BGP configuration is a simple iBGP config. AR1′s configuration is below:
AR1#router bgp 400 AR1#neighbor 10.255.255.7 remote-as 400 AR1#neighbor 10.255.255.7 update-source Loopback0 AR1#no auto-summary
The second part of the MP-BGP configuration is to enable the vpnv4 part of BGP:
AR1#address-family vpnv4 AR1#neighbor 10.255.255.7 activate AR1#neighbor 10.255.255.7 send-community extended
The final part is to set up the actual VRF part for each customer, and enable redistribution of RIP routes learned earlier:
AR1#address-family ipv4 vrf CUS2 AR1#redistribute rip metric 10 ! AR1#address-family ipv4 vrf CUS1 AR1#redistribute rip metric 10
To have a quick recap, this is the MPLS specific configuration now on AR1:
ip cef ! ip vrf CUS1 rd 400:1 route-target export 400:1 route-target import 400:1 ! ip vrf CUS2 rd 400:2 route-target export 400:2 route-target import 400:2 ! ! interface FastEthernet0/0 ip vrf forwarding CUS1 ip address 10.1.1.2 255.255.255.0 duplex auto speed auto ! interface FastEthernet2/0 ip vrf forwarding CUS2 ip address 10.1.2.2 255.255.255.0 duplex auto speed auto ! router rip version 2 no auto-summary ! address-family ipv4 vrf CUS2 redistribute bgp 400 metric 10 network 10.0.0.0 no auto-summary version 2 exit-address-family ! address-family ipv4 vrf CUS1 redistribute bgp 400 metric 10 network 10.0.0.0 no auto-summary version 2 exit-address-family ! router bgp 400 no synchronization bgp log-neighbor-changes neighbor 10.255.255.7 remote-as 400 neighbor 10.255.255.7 update-source Loopback0 no auto-summary ! address-family vpnv4 neighbor 10.255.255.7 activate neighbor 10.255.255.7 send-community extended exit-address-family ! address-family ipv4 vrf CUS2 redistribute rip metric 10 no synchronization exit-address-family ! address-family ipv4 vrf CUS1 redistribute rip metric 10 no synchronization exit-address-family
A similar configuration will of course need to be done on AR3.
Once done, we should be able to log onto CPE6 and ensure that it has CPE2′s networks. We should also see that it has NO access to CPE1 and CPE5′s networks. This is exactly what we see:
CPE6#sh ip route
Gateway of last resort is not set
172.16.0.0/24 is subnetted, 2 subnets
R 172.16.1.0 [120/10] via 10.1.4.2, 00:00:19, FastEthernet0/0
C 172.16.2.0 is directly connected, Loopback0
10.0.0.0/24 is subnetted, 2 subnets
R 10.1.2.0 [120/10] via 10.1.4.2, 00:00:19, FastEthernet0/0
C 10.1.4.0 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/0
Can we ping CPE2′s loopback? We sure can:
CPE6#ping 172.16.1.1 Type escape sequence to abort. Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 172.16.1.1, timeout is 2 seconds: !!!!! Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 12/60/92 ms
Can we ping CPE1′s loopback? No we cannot!
CPE6#ping 192.168.1.1 Type escape sequence to abort. Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.1.1, timeout is 2 seconds: ..... Success rate is 0 percent (0/5)
If we run a traceroute to CPE2′s loopback, we can see it going through the MPLS core:
CPE6#trace 172.16.1.1 Type escape sequence to abort. Tracing the route to 172.16.1.1 1 10.1.4.2 8 msec 0 msec 20 msec 2 10.8.0.1 [MPLS: Labels 28/38 Exp 0] 44 msec 68 msec 84 msec 3 10.1.2.2 [MPLS: Label 38 Exp 0] 60 msec 48 msec 28 msec 4 10.1.2.1 112 msec * 44 msec CPE6#
Lab done. If there are any questions, please let me know! :)
The diagram is the same as my last VPN Lab. Also it uses my MPLs topology found over here: http://mellowd.co.uk/ccie/?p=522
This is the topology for this lab (click for a bigger image):
- Customer1 and Customer 2 both have MPLS vpn’s through the ISP core.
- Customer1 is using OSPF and Customer2 is using EIGRP
- Customers should have no access to each others networks
- Customers should be able to reach all their sites from all their sites
- The ISP wants to monitor the CPE routers via their monitoring server. Create another loopback on each CPE router and give them all a /32 loopback in the 172.16.1.1/24 range – i.e. 172.16.1.1/32 for CPE1, 172.16.1.2/32 for CPE2 and so on
- Ensure the monitoring router can get to all these /32 routes (and ONLY these /32 routes) – It should not know about any customer routes – CPE routers should only see their OWN loopbacks in the routing table
- Now enable CPE3 and CPE6 to see each others subnets. All other CPE routers should see no change in their routing tables
This lab will test a Central Services MPLS VPN.
The diagram is the same as my last VPN Lab. Also it uses my MPLS topology found over here: http://mellowd.co.uk/ccie/?p=522
This is the topology for this lab (click for a bigger image):
- Customer1 and Customer 2 both have MPLS vpn’s through the ISP core.
- Customer1 is using OSPF and Customer2 is using EIGRP
- Customers should have no access to each others networks
- Customers should be able to reach all their sites from all their sites
- The ISP is now providing a mail relay for it’s customers to use. Ensure that all customers can get to the 10.200.1.1/24 subnet through their vpn’s, but they must still be seperated from each other.
This VPN lab will test intranet and extranet MPLS VPN’s.
The diagram is the same as my last VPN Lab. Also it uses my MPLs topology found over here: http://mellowd.co.uk/ccie/?p=522
This is the lab topology again:
- CPE1 and CPE5 belong to Customer1
- CPE2 and CPE6 belong to Customer2
- Both customers are running OSPF as their IGP’s
- The loopbacks as shown in the topology must be advertised into OSPF. Cutomer1 should be able to ping all loopbacks in their networks and Customer2 should be able to ping everything in theirs.
- Both customers are now running a project together, and need 2 of their offices connected. CPE1 from Customer1 should be able to communicate with CPE6 from Customer2 and vice-versa
- It’s essential that CPE2 and CPE5 are NOT able to get to all loopbacks. ONLY CPE1 and CPE6 should be able to communicate with each other. This new configuration should not break the previous VPN’s in place
- Do this without using any ACL’s, Prefix-lists, Route-maps or the like
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