Configure GRE Tunnels

The GRE tunneling provides packet isolation from one endpoint to another, encapsulated within an IP tunnel to separate user traffic.

GRE Tunneling facilitates configurations as shown in Figure 44, where guest users who are logged into a guest ESS are given “guest” Internet access at Level 1 and have their traffic separated from corporate users who are on a common shared link to the corporate campus. Contract users have similar connection as corporate users but are restricted in access to certain sites by user firewall policies.

GRE tunneling provides an option to segregate users’ traffic by allowing an ESS profile to be tied to a GRE profile. This provides an alternative to VLANs for segregating traffic.

Configure GRE Tunnels

Figure 44: Example GRE Tunneling Configuration

To configure GRE tunneling, create the GRE tunnel profile as well as an ESSID that specifies the GRE tunnel and also references a Security Profile. GRE can also be configured from E(z)RF Network Manager.

All IP addresses configured for the tunnel must be unique; these IP addresses define the endpoints of the tunnel, with the controller FastEthernet IP address defining the local endpoint and the ip remote-external-address specifying the remote endpoint.The ip tunnel-ip-address defines the tunnel network.

If the GRE Tunnel is to be configured on the second interface of a Dual-Ethernet configuration, be sure to configure the second Ethernet interface, as described in the section “Configuring an Active Interface” on page 201”.

The following example shows the commands for configuring a GRE tunnel profile on the second FastEthernet interface, where the IP address of the tunnel’s local endpoint is 13.13.13.13 and the remote endpoint is 172.27.0.206, and the DHCP server is at 10.0.0.12:

default(config)# gre guest default(config‐gre)# interface FastEthernet controller 2 default(config‐gre)# ip tunnel‐ip‐address 13.13.13.13 255.255.255.0 default(config‐gre)# ip remote‐external‐address 172.27.0.206 default(config‐gre)# ip dhcp‐override    default(config‐gre)# ip dhcp‐server 10.0.0.12 default(config‐gre)# end

Configure GRE Tunnels

To check the configuration of the GRE tunnel, use the show gre command:

default# show gre

GRE Name   Remote External Address   Tunnel IP address   Tunnel IP Netmask

LocalExternal

vlan1      172.27.0.162               12.12.12.12          255.255.0.0

1

gre1       172.27.0.206               13.13.13.13          255.255.0.0

2

         GRE Configuration(2 entries)

To configure the GRE ESSID, specify the GRE profile name, a tunnel-type and Security Profile, as shown in the following example:

default(config)# essid guest default(config‐essid)# gre name guest default(config‐essid)# tunnel‐type gre default(config‐essid)# security‐profile default default(config)# exit

• The GRE ESSID name must be the same as the GRE Tunnel Profile name specified in the preceding GRE Configuration procedure (for example, guest). The GRE Tunnel Profile name is specified in the gre name.
• For the tunnel-type, the gre parameter must be specified for GRE Tunnel configuration.
• Specify the Security Profile name with the security-profile command—typically the default profile is used.

To check the status of the a GRE tunnel, use the command: default# test gre gre_name ip_address

where gre_name is the GRE Profile name and ip_address is the IP address of the machine that is connected behind the tunnel (optional).

The following points should be noted when configuring a GRE tunnel:

• The DHCP relay pass-through flag always should be off for a GRE tunnel. This ensures the

DHCP relay is always on and hence the DHCP request packets are forwarded to the DHCP Server specified by DHCP Server IP Address.

• DHCP traffic associated with users connecting to a GRE tunnel are relayed to the configured DHCP Server located at the remote location through the associated GRE tunnel.

Configure GRE Tunnels

• Only IPv4 support is provided for GRE tunneling.