Configuring Compute to use IPv6 Addresses

You can configure Compute to use both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for communication by putting it into a IPv4/IPv6 dual stack mode. In IPv4/IPv6 dual stack mode, instances can acquire their IPv6 global unicast address by stateless address autoconfiguration mechanism [RFC 4862/2462]. IPv4/IPv6 dual stack mode works with VlanManager and FlatDHCPManager networking modes. In VlanManager, different 64bit global routing prefix is used for each project. In FlatDHCPManager, one 64bit global routing prefix is used for all instances.

This configuration has been tested with VM images that have IPv6 stateless address autoconfiguration capability (must use EUI-64 address for stateless address autoconfiguration), a requirement for any VM you want to run with an IPv6 address. Each node that executes a nova-* service must have python-netaddr and radvd installed.

On all nova-nodes, install python-netaddr:

$ sudo apt-get install -y python-netaddr

On all nova-network nodes install radvd and configure IPv6 networking:

$ sudo apt-get install -y radvd
$ sudo bash -c "echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/forwarding"
$ sudo bash -c "echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/accept_ra"

Edit the nova.conf file on all nodes to set the use_ipv6 configuration option to True. Restart all nova- services.

When using the command nova network-create you can add a fixed range for IPv6 addresses. You must specify public or private after the create parameter.

$ nova network-create public --fixed-range-v4 fixed_range --vlan vlan_id --vpn vpn_start --fixed-range-v6 fixed_range_v6

You can set IPv6 global routing prefix by using the --fixed_range_v6 parameter. The default is: fd00::/48. When you use FlatDHCPManager, the command uses the original value of --fixed_range_v6. When you use VlanManager, the command creates prefixes of subnet by incrementing subnet id. Guest VMs uses this prefix for generating their IPv6 global unicast address.

Here is a usage example for VlanManager:

$ nova network-create public --fixed-range-v4 10.0.1.0/24 --vlan 100 --vpn 1000 --fixed-range-v6 fd00:1::/48 

Here is a usage example for FlatDHCPManager:

$ nova network-create public  --fixed-range-v4 10.0.2.0/24 --fixed-range-v6 fd00:1::/48