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    Cisco VRF Basics

    Uploaded by

    Manuel Ferraz Monteiro
    The document discusses how Cisco VRF allows service providers to configure multiple virtual routing instances to allow overlapping private IP addresses for different customers without affecting network functionality. It provides steps to configure VRF instances including defining the VRF, associating interfaces, and viewing separate routing tables.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Cisco VRF Basics

    Uploaded by

    Manuel Ferraz Monteiro
    94 views3 pages
    The document discusses how Cisco VRF allows service providers to configure multiple virtual routing instances to allow overlapping private IP addresses for different customers without affecting network functionality. It provides steps to configure VRF instances including defining the VRF, associating interfaces, and viewing separate routing tables.

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    © © All Rights Reserved

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    The document discusses how Cisco VRF allows service providers to configure multiple virtual routing instances to allow overlapping private IP addresses for different customers without affecting network functionality. It provides steps to configure VRF instances including defining the VRF, associating interfaces, and viewing separate routing tables.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    94 views3 pages

    Cisco VRF Basics

    Uploaded by

    Manuel Ferraz Monteiro
    The document discusses how Cisco VRF allows service providers to configure multiple virtual routing instances to allow overlapping private IP addresses for different customers without affecting network functionality. It provides steps to configure VRF instances including defining the VRF, associating interfaces, and viewing separate routing tables.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    Cisco VRF Virtual Routing and

    Forwarding
    How does a service provider manage to allow overlapping IP addresses for its different
    customers, specifically private IP addresses, without affecting network functionality? The
    answer is creating multiple routing instances or Cisco VRF, Virtual Routing and Forwarding,
    instances.

    To put it simply, VRF is like configuring multiple routers or multiple routing tables on the
    same router. Let’s look at the image below:

    Imagine that the service provider is one giant router with its own global routing table, which
    could be public IPs routable to the Internet. Inside this giant router, we configure a virtual
    router for Customer A, who happens to be advertising network 192.168.1.0/24 from one of
    their sites through either static or dynamic routing. Then, another customer, Customer B, also
    advertises the same network 192.168.1.0/24 from one of their sites.

    Customers can freely use private IP addresses as stated in RFC 1918:

    An enterprise that decides to use IP addresses out of the address space defined in this
    document can do so without any coordination with IANA or an Internet registry.

    Cisco VRF Configuration Steps

    Now, let’s proceed with the process and VRF configuration mode.
    1. Let’s create a VRF instance for our Customer A using the ‘vrf definition <vrf-name>’
    command. Remember that the VRF name is case-sensitive.

    ISP#conf t
    Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
    ISP(config)#vrf definition Cust-A

    2. Use the ‘address-family <ipv4 | ipv6>’ command to initialize the address family. We can
    configure both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. For our example, we’ll stick to IPv4.

    ISP(config-vrf)#address-family ipv4
    ISP(config-vrf-af)#

    3. Associate interfaces with VRF instance by using command ‘interface <interface-id>’ and
    ‘vrf forwarding <vrf-name>’.

    ISP(config)#interface gigabitEthernet 0/1


    ISP(config-if)#vrf forwarding Cust-A

    4. Configure the IPv4 address on the interface.

    ISP(config-if)#ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0

    Let’s repeat the same process for Customer B:

    ISP#conf t
    Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
    ISP(config)#vrf definition Cust-B
    ISP(config-vrf)#address-family ipv4
    ISP(config-vrf-af)#exit
    ISP(config-vrf)#exit
    ISP(config)#interface gigabitEthernet 0/2
    ISP(config-if)#vrf forwarding Cust-B
    ISP(config-if)#ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0
    ISP(config-if)#end

    Notice that the ISP router did not alert us of any overlapping IP addresses. Normally, it
    will say something like this:

    ISP(config-if)#ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0


    % 192.168.1.0 overlaps with GigabitEthernet0/1

    For our ISP global config, we’ve configured 172.10.10.0/24.


    Now let’s look at the three routing tables. We should see three different routing tables in a
    single router.

    For ISP’s global routing table:

    ISP#sh ip route

    172.10.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 2 subnets, 2 masks


    C 172.10.10.0/24 is directly connected, GigabitEthernet0/0
    L 172.10.10.1/32 is directly connected, GigabitEthernet0/0

    For Customer A’s routing table:

    ISP#sh ip route vrf Cust-A

    Routing Table: Cust-A

    192.168.1.0/24 is variably subnetted, 2 subnets, 2 masks


    C 192.168.1.0/24 is directly connected, GigabitEthernet0/1
    L 192.168.1.1/32 is directly connected, GigabitEthernet0/1

    For Customer B’s routing table:

    ISP#sh ip route vrf Cust-B

    Routing Table: Cust-B

    192.168.1.0/24 is variably subnetted, 2 subnets, 2 masks


    C 192.168.1.0/24 is directly connected, GigabitEthernet0/2
    L 192.168.1.1/32 is directly connected, GigabitEthernet0/2

    Our previous example is usually found on ISP routers, but we can also use this on enterprise
    routers called VRF Lite. For example, if we want to separate our network paths for Intranet
    and Extranet, then we can create multiple routing tables. The VRF Lite configuration looks
    almost the same as our example above, but with some minor differences. However, the
    concept is still the same.

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