A shell script to quickly setup an IPv6 brouter on OpenWRT. A brouter, is part bridge, part router, this script sets up a IPv6 bridge, and an IPv4 NAT router.
There is also a generic version of the script (tested on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS) which in addition to the brouter, also sets up basic IPv4 NAT.
IPv4 NAT is everywhere. From an IPv6 point of view NAT is a cancer which breaks end to end network connectivity. NAT is used from large-scale CGNs (Carrier Grade NAT), to little home routers, down to your cell phone, when you want to turn on a hotspot.
With 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 (2^64) potential IPv6 addresses on a LAN segment, there are more than enough addresses to extend the IPv6 network across many of the smaller NAT scenarios.
By using bridging for IPv6, it just works. The inside network is connected transparently (for IPv6) to the outside network. Using a v6brouter, allows you to extend the IPv6 network with minimal effort and maximum compatibility, while maintaining current IPv4 NAT-based typologies.
For example, given the router with eth0.1 and eth1 interfaces:
- IPv6: Inside LAN and Outside LAN are one multicast domain or bridged
- IPv4: Inside LAN and Outside LAN are two broadcast domains and routed (via NAT)
# (Inside LAN)----->eth0.1 (br-lan) eth1----->(Outside LAN)
# ( brouter )
The v6brouter script leverages Netfilter heavily, by utilizing ebtables (for bridging) and iptables (for NAT). Netfilter does all the heavy lifting, and is well optimized code. More information for ebtables can be found at ebtables.netfilter.org with specific brouter examples.
Shell script is easy to read, understand, and execute. The v6brouter shell script is designed to be a working script, as well as a tutorial for those who wish to incorporate the concept of a brouter into their own networks. The OpenWRT included /bin/sh works just fine with v6brouter shell script.
Version 2 has been reworked to address issues with wlan interfaces having different MAC addresses from the LAN (br-lan) interface. It uses a much simpler approach found in IOPSL's Blog.
It differs from IOPSL's implementation in that it implements a IPv6 Firewall, which blocks all in-bound IPv6 traffic (except SSH & ICMPv6). To enable the firewall, use the -F parameter when starting up v6brouter_openwrt.sh.
Note: As of version 2.0.2, the configuration (/etc/v6brouter.conf) has been separated from the script, making the configurations options more readable, and user friendly. Additionally, the IPv6 brouter rules are also located in the configuration file.
Because OpenWRT already has iptables support for IPv4 NAT, but is lacking --ip-dst extension to ebtables, a script has been created specifically for OpenWRT, called v6brouter_openwrt.sh. Use the -R option to remove v6brouter and restore the OpenWRT default bridge configuration.
The script does not make any changes to the OpenWRT UCI Configuration. Cycling power to the router will restore your previous configuration.
If you want the v6brouter configuration to survive reboots:
- Copy script to /root on the router
- In LuCI, System -> Startup -> Local Startup, add:
/root/v6brouter_openwrt.sh -E
Note: Due to the timing of when interfaces actually become available, you may have to add a sleep 5; before the script if you find that v6brouter is not working as expected on reboot.
root@openwrt:# ./v6brouter_openwrt.sh -h
./v6brouter_openwrt.sh - sets up brouter to NAT IPv4, and bridge IPv6
-E Enable openwrt v6brouter
-R Restore openwrt bridge config
-F configure v6Bridge FireWall (default DROP, except SSH)
-s show status of ./v6brouter_openwrt.sh
-h this help
root@openwrt:# ./v6brouter_openwrt.sh -E
--- checking for ebtables
/usr/sbin/ebtables
--- configuring v6 bridge
brctl: bridge br-lan: Device or resource busy
bridge name bridge id STP enabled interfaces
br-lan 7fff.0024a5d73088 no eth0.1
wlan0
eth1
Bridge table: filter
Bridge chain: INPUT, entries: 0, policy: ACCEPT
Bridge chain: FORWARD, entries: 0, policy: ACCEPT
Bridge chain: OUTPUT, entries: 0, policy: ACCEPT
--- Disable IPv6 RA on LAN
--- assigning IPv6 management address 2001:470:ebbd:0::11 to br-lan
--- configuring brouter to route everything but IPv6
Bridge table: broute
Bridge chain: BROUTING, entries: 1, policy: ACCEPT
-p ! IPv6 -i eth1 -j DROP
--- pau
root@openwrt:# ./v6brouter_openwrt.sh -E -F
--- checking for ebtables
/usr/sbin/ebtables
--- configuring v6 bridge
bridge name bridge id STP enabled interfaces
br-lan 7fff.0024a5d73088 no eth0.1
wlan0
eth1
Bridge table: filter
Bridge chain: INPUT, entries: 0, policy: ACCEPT
Bridge chain: FORWARD, entries: 1, policy: ACCEPT
-p IPv6 -i eth1 -j mark --mark-set 0x10 --mark-target CONTINUE
Bridge chain: OUTPUT, entries: 0, policy: ACCEPT
--- Disable IPv6 RA on LAN
--- assigning IPv6 management address 2001:470:ebbd:0::11 to br-lan
--- configuring brouter to route everything but IPv6
Bridge table: broute
Bridge chain: BROUTING, entries: 1, policy: ACCEPT
-p ! IPv6 -i eth1 -j DROP
--- ALLOW_SSH from eth1 via ip6tables, block all others
Chain forwarding_rule (1 references)
target prot opt source destination
ACCEPT tcp anywhere anywhere mark match 0x10 tcp dpt:ssh
ACCEPT ipv6-icmp anywhere anywhere mark match 0x10
DROP all anywhere anywhere mark match 0x10
--- enable ip6tables firewall for v6Bridge
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables = 1
--- pau
Forgot if the v6brouter is already enabled? No problem a status option has been added, which will report enabled or DISABLED.
root@openwrt:# ./v6brouter_openwrt.sh -s
--- checking for ebtables
/usr/sbin/ebtables
--- checking status of v6Brouter
v6Brouter enabled
Remove v6brouter config, thus restoring the normal OpenWRT operation.
root@openwrt:# ./v6brouter_openwrt.sh -R
--- checking for ebtables
/usr/sbin/ebtables
-- Restore old bridge:br-lan
bridge name bridge id STP enabled interfaces
br-lan 7fff.0024a5d73088 no eth0.1
wlan0
-- Disable ip6tables inspection of bridge traffic
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables = 0
--- cleanup done
The v6brouter.sh script can be run multiple times, as it will cleanup before adding bridge elements and rules. Use the -D option when deleting the v6brouter. This script is more of a learning exercise, and active development is on the OpenWRT version.
$ ./v6brouter.sh -h
./v6brouter.sh - sets up brouter to NAT IPv4, and bridge IPv6
-D delete brouter, v6bridge, IPv4 NAT config
-h this help
~$ sudo ./v6brouter.sh
--- configuring v6 bridge
bridge name bridge id STP enabled interfaces
br0 8000.9cd643ae1915 no eth0
eth1
Bridge table: filter
Bridge chain: INPUT, entries: 0, policy: ACCEPT
Bridge chain: FORWARD, entries: 1, policy: DROP
-p IPv6 -j ACCEPT
Bridge chain: OUTPUT, entries: 0, policy: ACCEPT
--- configuring brouter ipv4 interface tables
Bridge table: broute
Bridge chain: BROUTING, entries: 8, policy: ACCEPT
-p IPv4 -i eth0 --ip-dst 192.168.11.77 -j DROP
-p IPv4 -i eth1 --ip-dst 10.1.1.177 -j DROP
-p ARP -d d4:9a:20:1:e0:a4 -i eth0 -j DROP
-p ARP -d 9c:d6:43:ae:19:15 -i eth1 -j DROP
-p ARP -i eth0 --arp-ip-dst 192.168.11.77 -j DROP
-p ARP -i eth1 --arp-ip-dst 10.1.1.177 -j DROP
-p IPv4 -d d4:9a:20:1:e0:a4 -i eth0 -j DROP
-p IPv4 -d 9c:d6:43:ae:19:15 -i eth1 -j DROP
--- configuring IPv4 NAT
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
ACCEPT all -- anywhere anywhere
Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Chain PREROUTING (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Chain POSTROUTING (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
MASQUERADE all -- anywhere anywhere
--- pau
$ sudo ./v6brouter.sh -D
-- removing old bridge:br0
--- cleanup done
Install ebtables and ip on your OpenWRT router using LuCI or via the command line:
# opkg install ebtables
# opkg install ip
As of OpenWrt 22.03.x, the older iptables has been replaced with NetFilter (NFT). This requires installing a NFT-enabled version of ebtables and ip commands.
# opkg update
# opkg install ebtables-nft
# opkg install ip6tables-nft
# opkg install iptables-nft
# opkg install ip-full
Copy v6brouter_openwrt.sh to your router, edit values (for interfaces, and addresses) near the top of the script and run.
The following values should be adjusted for your network, and brouter (as of version 2, this is simplified):
# change these to match your interfaces
WAN_DEV=eth1
BRIDGE=br-lan
# IPv6 Management address
BRIDGE_IP6=2001:470:1d:583::11
One only needs to install ebtables and ip packages. It has been tested on Chaos Calmer (v15.05.1) of OpenWRT. (removed bash dependency as of v0.97). It may be required to also install kmod-br-netfilter if opkg doesn't install it as part of the ebtables install.
Script requires ebtables, iptables, brctl, ip and must be run via sudo or as root, as it is making changes to bridging and iptables in kernel space. It has been tested with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
It also assumes that two (2) interfaces are available for brouting.
The openwrt version of the script uses the OpenWRT firewall and IPv4 NAT. The script does not change the iptables rules. When using the -F option to enable the v6Bridge Firewall, an entry is added to the the ip6tables user chain forwrding_rule to drop all OUTSIDE IPv6 traffic, except SSH & ICMPv6. ICMPv6 is required for RAs and Neighbour Discovery (ND) to get across the v6Brouter.
v6brouter only supports simple bridging (e.g. between two ethernet ports). It does not support PPPoE interfaces.
When in v6brouter mode, it is possible to log into the OpenWRT router via ssh from the outside network. You may wish to add an IPv6 firewall rule to prevent this.
The script assumes /24 IPv4 subnets.
The script does NOT configure any firewall. Do not recommend using this for a device directly connected to the internet without first adding firewall rules.
ebtables is part of netfilter, commonly known in Linux as iptables and ip6tables. ebtables however, operates on Layer 2 (think Ethernet layer) rather than Layer 3 (the network layer) of the OSI model.
Bridging is where a device forwards a packet based on the destination MAC address of the packet. A bridge is only useful if it has 2 or more ports. In Linux the brctl command is used to assign ports (or interfaces) to the kernel-based bridge. When using v6brouter both ports must be Ethernet (bridging between ethernet and PPPoE is not supported).
The Ethernet header has the destination MAC, source MAC, and EtherType fields.The EtherType field can be thought of a what's next field, as it signals to the protocol decoder what is the next header is going to be. This is a hexadecimal field, but some common values are:
- 0800 IPv4
- 0806 ARP
- 86DD IPv6
In order to create an IPv6-only bridge, the bridging device (Linux kernel) needs to filter the packets based on the EtherType field with the value of 0x86DD, and the do the normal destination MAC address lookup.
It is amazingly simple to create an IPv6-only bridge using ebtables. ebtables has three standard chains, INPUT, OUTPUT, and FORWARD. And additionally it has a built-in broute chain. In the broute chain, DROP means forward packet to the stack:
ebtables -t broute -F
ebtables -t broute -A BROUTING -i $WAN_DEV -p ! ipv6 -j DROP
That's it! The first rule says delete all rules in the broute chain. The second rule says, send all non-IPv6 traffic to the stack (to be routed).
As you saw, it is decidedly easy to create an IPv6-only bridge. To create a Brouter, some packets must be bridged, and others must be sent up the stack to be evaluated and forwarded at the Network Layer (3).
ebtables has a special chain called broute which when packets are dropped in this chain, the packets are actually not dropped but are sent up the stack to be dealt with by the networking layer and above.
Once the packets are at the network layer, iptables can do their magic (using the special NAT chain) to mangle the packets for NAT. All the while IPv6 packets have been quietly bridged without the network layer knowing.
As stated earlier the advantage of a v6Brouter is that it just bridges IPv6 traffic, thus extending the existing IPv6 prefix address space. However, you may not want the upstream network to access your network. The answer is to use a firewall, and ip6tables is very capable.
The usual way of creating a firewall is to block traffic from one interface (say the OUTSIDE) and allow traffic from the INSIDE interface.
However with a brouter, all packets appear to be coming from the BRIDGE interface from both directions! And because both sides of the v6Brouter share the same IPv6 prefix, you can't filter based on destination address, or source address. ebtables knows the correct ingress/egress interfaces, but can't filter at L3 or L4 (OpenWRT doesn't support filtering L3 with ebtables).
Fortunately, the netfilter architects created a mechanism for ebtables and ip6tables to communicate, called mark. By marking a packet at L2 with ebtables , the mark can be read and acted upon (read: drop) with ip6tables. In order to block, say SSH traffic from the OUTSIDE, requires 3 steps:
- Mark all packets from the OUTSIDE interface with a value, say 16 (or 0x10) with
ebtables - Filter or DROP packets which have destination port 22 (for SSH) and the marked value of 16 with
ip6tables - Enable ip6tables to inspect bridged traffic with
sysctl
At the command line, this looks like:
# Mark $OUTSIDE packets to be dropped by ip6tables (later)
ebtables -A FORWARD -p ipv6 -i $WAN_DEV -j mark --set-mark 16 --mark-target CONTINUE
# allow SSH from the WAN
ip6tables -A forwarding_rule -m mark --mark 16 -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT
# allow icmpv6 - for RAs and ND
ip6tables -A forwarding_rule -m mark --mark 16 -p icmpv6 -j ACCEPT
# Drop all inbound traffic from $WAN_DEV interface
ip6tables -A forwarding_rule -m mark --mark 16 -j DROP
# Enable ip6tables for the bridge
sysctl -w net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables=1
Version 0.98 of v6brouter_openwrt.sh now contains this firewall example, enable with -F option. As of version 2.0.2, firewall options are found in v6brouter.conf file.
All code by Craig Miller cvmiller at gmail dot com. But ideas, and ports to other embedded platforms beyond OpenWRT are welcome. Thanks to Jakobi for the separate configuration file enhancement.
This project is open source, under the GPLv2 license (see LICENSE)