How to configure GRE Tunnel on Cisco IOS Router

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Rene Molenaar in CCNP R&S, Cisco Tunneling is a concept where we put packets into packets so that they can be transported over certain networks. We also call this encapsulation. A good example is when you have two sites with IPv6 addresses on their LAN but they are only connected to the Internet with IPv4 addresses.Normally it would be impossible for the two IPv6 LANs to reach each other but by using tunneling the two routers will put IPv6 packets into IPv4 packets so that our IPv6 traffic can be routed on the Internet.

Another example is where we have an HQ and a branch site and you want to run a routing protocol like RIP, OSPF or EIGRP between them. We can tunnel these routing protocols so that the HQ and branch router can exchange routing information. Basically when you configure a tunnel, its like you create a point-to-point connectionbetween the two devices. GRE (Generic Routing

Encapsulation) is a simple tunneling technique that can do this for us. Let me show you a topology that we will use to demonstrate GRE: Above we have 3 routers connected to each other. On the left side we have the HQ router which is our headquarters. On the right side there is a Branch router that is supposed to be a branch office. Both routers are connected to the Internet, in the middle on top ther e is an ISP router. We can use this topology to simulate two routers that are connected to the Internet. The HQ and Branch router each have a loopback interface that represents the LAN.

Let me show you the basic configuration of these routers so that you can recreate it if you want:

HQ(config)#interface fastEthernet 0/0 HQ(config-if)#ip address 192.168.12.1 255.255.255.0 HQ(config-if)#exit HQ(config)#interface loopback0 HQ(config-if)#ip address 172.16.1.1 255.255.255.0 HQ(config-if)#exit HQ(config)#ip route 192.168.23.3 255.255.255.255 192.168.12.2

ISP(config)#interface fastEthernet 0/0 ISP(config-if)#ip address 192.168.12.2 255.255.255.0 ISP(config-if)#exit ISP(config)#interface fastEthernet 1/0 ISP(config-if)#ip address 192.168.23.2 255.255.255.0 Branch(config)#interface fastEthernet 0/0 Branch(config-if)#ip address 192.168.23.3 255.255.255.0 Branch(config-if)#exit Branch(config)#interface loopback 0 Branch(config-if)#ip address 172.16.3.3 255.255.255.0 Branch(config-if)#exit Branch(config)#ip route 192.168.12.1 255.255.255.255 192.168.23.2 I created a static route on the HQ and Branch router so that they can reach each other through the ISP router. They will be unable to reach the networks on each others loopback interfaces however. Now lets create a tunnel:

HQ(config)#interface tunnel 1 HQ(config-if)#tunnel source fastEthernet 0/0 HQ(config-if)#tunnel destination 192.168.23.3 HQ(config-if)#ip address 192.168.13.1 255.255.255.0 Branch(config)#interface tunnel 1 Branch(config-if)#tunnel source fastEthernet 0/0 Branch(config-if)#tunnel destination 192.168.12.1 Branch(config-if)#ip address 192.168.13.3 255.255.255.0 You can pick any number for the tunnel interface that you like. We need to specify a source and destination IP address to build the tunnel and well use the 192.168.13.0 /24 subnet on the tunnel interface. Lets verify that our tunnel is working:

HQ#show interfaces tunnel 1 Tunnel1 is up, line protocol is up Hardware is Tunnel Internet address is 192.168.13.1/24 MTU 1514 bytes, BW 9 Kbit, DLY 500000 usec, reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255 Encapsulation TUNNEL, loopback not set Keepalive not set Tunnel source 192.168.12.1 (FastEthernet0/0), destination 192.168.23.3 Tunnel protocol/transport GRE/IP Branch#show interfaces tunnel 1 Tunnel1 is up, line protocol is up Hardware is Tunnel Internet address is 192.168.13.3/24 MTU 1514 bytes, BW 9 Kbit, DLY 500000 usec, reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255 Encapsulation TUNNEL, loopback not set Keepalive not set Tunnel source 192.168.23.3 (FastEthernet0/0), destination 192.168.12.1 Tunnel protocol/transport GRE/IP Above you can see that the tunnel interface is up/up on both routers. The default tunneling mode is GRE. Lets see if both ro uters can reach each other:

Branch#ping 192.168.13.1 Type escape sequence to abort. Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.13.1, timeout is 2 seconds: !!!!! Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 4/7/12 ms There we gothey can ping each other without any issues! So that wasnt too bad right? Lets see if we can enable a routing protocol so that we can advertise the loopback interfaces. Ill use EIGRP for this:

HQ(config)#router eigrp 13

HQ(config-router)#no auto-summary HQ(config-router)#network 192.168.13.0 HQ(config-router)#network 172.16.1.0 Branch(config)#router eigrp 13 Branch(config-router)#no auto-summary Branch(config-router)#network 192.168.13.0 Branch(config-router)#network 172.16.3.0 Ill activate EIGRP on the tunnel and loopback interfaces. You will see that both routers establish an EIGRP neighbor adjacency through the tunnel interface. Lets check the routing tables:

HQ#show ip route eigrp 172.16.0.0/24 is subnetted, 2 subnets D 172.16.3.0 [90/297372416] via 192.168.13.3, 00:01:31, Tunnel1 Branch#show ip route eigrp 172.16.0.0/24 is subnetted, 2 subnets D 172.16.1.0 [90/297372416] via 192.168.13.1, 00:01:51, Tunnel1 As you can see the two routers learned about each others networks. They will use the tunnel interface to reach each other. Lets do a quick test:

HQ#ping 172.16.3.3 source loopback 0 Type escape sequence to abort. Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 172.16.3.3, timeout is 2 seconds: Packet sent with a source address of 172.16.1.1 !!!!! Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 4/8/12 ms A quick ping between the loopback interfaces proves that the two LANs can reach each other. Be careful when you run a routing protocol on the tunnel interface as this can causerecursive routing issues. If you dont know what this is, take a look at my recursive routing GRE tunnel article. In case you are curious, let me show you what encapsulated packets look like in wireshark:

Take a close look at the source and destination IP addresses. You can see the packet between 192.168.12.1 and 192.168.23.3 and inside you will find the IP packet between 172.16.1.1 and 172.16.3.3. Note that GRE does tunneling for us but doesnt encrypt any traffic like a VPN does. IPSEC is one of the protocols that can encrypt the packets within our tunnel.