Blog |Follow Nick on Mastodon| About
 

I'm not sure why GRE isn't in RedHat's Documentation, but setting up a GRE tunnel between two RedHat boxes is quite straight forward...

On Host1 (192.168.56.101)...

#!/bin/bash
[root@CentOS1 ~]# cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-tun0 
DEVICE=tun0
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=no
TYPE=GRE
PEER_OUTER_IPADDR=192.168.56.102
PEER_INNER_IPADDR=192.168.168.2
MY_INNER_IPADDR=192.168.168.1
[root@CentOS1 ~]#

On host2 (192.168.56.102) ....

#!/bin/bash
[root@CentOS2 ~]# cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-tun0 
DEVICE=tun0
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=no
TYPE=GRE
PEER_OUTER_IPADDR=192.168.56.101
PEER_INNER_IPADDR=192.168.168.1
MY_INNER_IPADDR=192.168.168.2
[root@CentOS1 ~]#

Bring the interfaces up....

#!/bin/bash
[root@CentOS1 ~]# ifup tun0

.. on host2...

#!/bin/bash
[root@CentOS2 ~]# ifup tun0

And we're done! ... see the proof in the pudding below....

#!/bin/bash
[root@CentOS1 ~]# ifconfig tun0
tun0      Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-00-00-00-05-08-80-3C-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          inet addr:192.168.168.1  P-t-P:192.168.168.2  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP  MTU:1476  Metric:1
          RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:7 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:168 (168.0 b)  TX bytes:756 (756.0 b)

[root@CentOS1 ~]# ping 192.168.168.2
PING 192.168.168.2 (192.168.168.2) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.168.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=1.51 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.168.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=2.13 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.168.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=2.12 ms

--- 192.168.168.2 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2004ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.511/1.921/2.132/0.289 ms
[root@CentOS1 ~]#

The other end...

#!/bin/bash
[root@CentOS2 ~]# ifconfig tun0
tun0      Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-00-00-00-05-08-80-4C-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          inet addr:192.168.168.2  P-t-P:192.168.168.1  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP  MTU:1476  Metric:1
          RX packets:42 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:42 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:3528 (3.4 KiB)  TX bytes:4536 (4.4 KiB)

[root@CentOS2 ~]# ping 192.168.168.1
PING 192.168.168.1 (192.168.168.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.168.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=4.39 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.168.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=1.41 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.168.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=2.57 ms

--- 192.168.168.1 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2005ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.419/2.795/4.393/1.224 ms
[root@CentOS2 ~]#

Here we show the tunnelled packets...

#!/bin/bash
[root@CentOS1 ~]# tcpdump -n -i eth1 proto 47
tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
listening on eth1, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 96 bytes
13:45:59.429315 IP 192.168.56.102 > 192.168.56.101: GREv0, length 88: IP 192.168.168.2 > 192.168.168.1: ICMP echo request, id 55053, seq 7, length 64
13:45:59.429315 IP 192.168.56.101 > 192.168.56.102: GREv0, length 88: IP 192.168.168.1 > 192.168.168.2: ICMP echo reply, id 55053, seq 7, length 64
13:46:00.530528 IP 192.168.56.102 > 192.168.56.101: GREv0, length 88: IP 192.168.168.2 > 192.168.168.1: ICMP echo request, id 55053, seq 8, length 64
13:46:00.530686 IP 192.168.56.101 > 192.168.56.102: GREv0, length 88: IP 192.168.168.1 > 192.168.168.2: ICMP echo reply, id 55053, seq 8, length 64
13:46:01.418447 IP 192.168.56.102 > 192.168.56.101: GREv0, length 88: IP 192.168.168.2 > 192.168.168.1: ICMP echo request, id 55053, seq 9, length 64
13:46:01.418526 IP 192.168.56.101 > 192.168.56.102: GREv0, length 88: IP 192.168.168.1 > 192.168.168.2: ICMP echo reply, id 55053, seq 9, length 64

6 packets captured
6 packets received by filter
0 packets dropped by kernel
[root@CentOS1 ~]#

Since we can see the ICMP packets inside the GRE tunnel that show's us that GRE is in clear text... to add some security setup a simple IPSEC VPN :)

Reference: http://juliano.info/en/Blog:Memory_Leak/Bridges_and_tunnels_in_Fedora

 

 
Nick Bettison ©