RFC 3053 (rfc3053) - Page 1 of 13

IPv6 Tunnel Broker

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Network Working Group                                          A. Durand
Request for Comments: 3053                         SUN Microsystems, Inc
Category: Informational                                        P. Fasano
                                                             I. Guardini
                                                            CSELT S.p.A.
                                                                D. Lento
                                                                     TIM
                                                            January 2001


                           IPv6 Tunnel Broker

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   The IPv6 global Internet as of today uses a lot of tunnels over the
   existing IPv4 infrastructure.  Those tunnels are difficult to
   configure and maintain in a large scale environment.  The 6bone has
   proven that large sites and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can do
   it, but this process is too complex for the isolated end user who
   already has an IPv4 connection and would like to enter the IPv6
   world.  The motivation for the development of the tunnel broker model
   is to help early IPv6 adopters to hook up to an existing IPv6 network
   (e.g., the 6bone) and to get stable, permanent IPv6 addresses and DNS
   names.  The concept of the tunnel broker was first presented at
   Orlando's IETF in December 1998.  Two implementations were
   demonstrated during the Grenoble IPng & NGtrans interim meeting in
   February 1999.

1. Introduction

   The growth of IPv6 networks started mainly using the transport
   facilities offered by the current Internet.  This led to the
   development of several techniques to manage IPv6 over IPv4 tunnels.
   At present most of the 6bone network is built using manually
   configured tunnels over the Internet.  The main drawback of this
   approach is the overwhelming management load for network
   administrators, who have to perform extensive manual configuration
   for each tunnel.  Several attempts to reduce this management overhead



Durand, et al.               Informational
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