---
title: IPv6 Support
canonical_url: '/usage/ipv6'
---

Calico supports connectivity over IPv6, between compute hosts, and
between compute hosts and their VMs. This means that, subject to
security configuration, a VM can initiate an IPv6 connection to another
VM, or to an IPv6 destination outside the data center; and that a VM can
terminate an IPv6 connection from outside.

## Requirements for containers

Containers have no specific requirements for utilising IPv6
connectivity.

## Requirements for guest VM images

When using Calico with a VM platform (e.g. OpenStack), obtaining IPv6
connectivity requires certain configuration in the guest VM image:

-   When it boots up, the VM should issue a DHCPv6 request for each of
    its interfaces, so that it can learn the IPv6 addresses that
    OpenStack has allocated for it.
-   The VM must be configured to accept Router Advertisements.
-   If it uses the widely deployed DHCP client from ISC, the VM must
    have a fix or workaround for [this known
    issue](https://kb.isc.org/article/AA-01141/31/How-to-workaround-IPv6-prefix-length-issues-with-ISC-DHCP-clients.html).

These requirements are not yet all met in common cloud images - but it
is easy to remedy that by launching an image, making appropriate changes
to its configuration files, taking a snapshot, and then using that
snapshot thereafter instead of the original image.

For example, starting from the Ubuntu 14.04 cloud image, the following
changes will suffice to meet the requirements just listed.

-   In `/etc/network/interfaces.d/eth0.cfg`, add:

        iface eth0 inet6 dhcp
                accept_ra 1

-   In `/sbin/dhclient-script`, add at the start of the script:

        new_ip6_prefixlen=128

-   In `/etc/sysctl.d`, create a file named `30-eth0-rs-delay.conf` with
    contents:

        net.ipv6.conf.eth0.router_solicitation_delay = 10

## Implementation details

Following are the key points of how IPv6 connectivity is currently
implemented in Calico.

-   IPv6 forwarding is globally enabled on each compute host.
-   Felix (the Calico agent):
    -   does `ip -6 neigh add lladdr dev`, instead of IPv4 case
        `arp -s`, for each endpoint that is created with an IPv6 address
    -   adds a static route for the endpoint's IPv6 address, via its tap
        or veth device, just as for IPv4.
-   Dnsmasq provides both Router Advertisements and DHCPv6 service
    (neither of which are required for container environments).
    -   Router Advertisements, without SLAAC or on-link flags, cause
        each VM to create a default route to the link-local address of
        the VM's TAP device on the compute host.
    -   DHCPv6 allows VMs to get their orchestrator-allocated
        IPv6 address.
-   For container environments, we don't Dnsmasq:
    -   rather than using Router Advertisements to create the default
        route, we Proxy NDP to ensure that routes to all machines go via
        the compute host.
    -   rather than using DHCPv6 to allocate IPv6 addresses, we allocate
        the IPv6 address directly to the container interface before we
        move it into the container.
-   BIRD6 runs between the compute hosts to distribute routes.

OpenStack Specific Details
--------------------------

In OpenStack, IPv6 connectivity requires defining an IPv6 subnet, in
each Neutron network, with:

-   the IPv6 address range that you want your VMs to use
-   DHCP enabled
-   (from Juno onwards) IPv6 address mode set to DHCPv6 stateful.

We suggest initially configuring both IPv4 and IPv6 subnets in each
network. This allows handling VM images that support only IPv4 alongside
those that support both IPv4 and IPv6, and allows a VM to be accessed
over IPv4 in case this is needed to troubleshoot any issues with its
IPv6 configuration.

In principle, though, we are not aware of any problems with configuring
and using IPv6-only networks in OpenStack.
