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What is IPv6 Intra Site Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP)?

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ISATAP is a routable tunneling protocol developed by the IETF as an extension to IPv6, used in scenarios where no other encapsulation is available. It uses IPv4 to transmit data packets over the network.

IPv6 Intra Site Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP): 

It is a tunneling protocol that was developed as an extension to IPv6 by the IETF and is used in scenarios where no other encapsulation is available. It uses IPv4 to transmit data packets over the network, so it’s only useful if there are a sufficient amount of IPv4 addresses available on your local area network and through your ISP. IPv4 addresses must be configured in addition to native IPv6 addresses. ISATAP can’t be used as a global unicast addressing scheme, so it’s only useful to exchange IPv6 packets within an organization, rather than between organizations.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has reserved the following address block for the ISATAP protocol:

  • 2001:0000::/32
  • 2001:7000::/32

These are unique prefix lengths for use with ISATAP and have been statically assigned by IANA. The first is the global unicast prefix of all ISATAP interfaces and the second is anycast addressing that represents a set of interfaces.

Because ISATAP is an extension to IPv6 and uses IPv4, it must have its own protocol number. It’s assigned a protocol number of 41.

In order to use ISATAP, you need to configure your router as a 6 to4 host or router. To do this, use the following commands:

  • ipv6 host 2001:0000::1 255.255.255.255
  • ipv6 host 2001:7000::1 255.255.255.255

You should also configure your local IPv6 address with the following command:

  • ipv6 address 2001:0000:0000::1/128

Once you’ve completed these steps, the router should be enabled and ISATAP should be installed and enabled as well. The default address of an ISATAP interface on a router is 2001:7000::1 and it has an IPv4 address of 169.254.100.

Advantages:

  • ISATAP is compatible with 6 to 4.
  • It’s similar and compatible with the Intra-Site Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP) protocol, which is used on IPv4.

Disadvantages:

  • It can only connect sites that have an IPv4 address available for use through their ISP, or that have a sufficient number of public routable IPv4 addresses available on the local area network.
     

Last Updated : 17 Aug, 2022
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