The Auto Manage Routes feature adds and manages the IPv6 routes at external E2E Controller. These IPv6 routes are required for routing the IPv6 packets from E2E controller to CNs and DNs.
The feature is applicable only when PoP and E2E Controller are in the same subnet.
Multi-PoP network
In a multi-PoP network, the Auto Manage Routes feature allows to avoid a BGP v6 router under the following conditions:
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When the Layer 2 bridge is enabled (which implies that the BGP v6 router is not required for managing data traffic).
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When PoPs and E2E Controller are in the same subnet or L2 broadcast domain.
In a multi-PoP network typically Deterministic Prefix Allocation (DPA) is used. The mesh gets divided into zones and each PoP is best gateway to reach nodes in its zone. In addition, when a PoP is down, a different alive PoP should be used as gateway to reach zones. Auto Route feature understands the cnWave network topology, keeps track of aliveness of PoPs and builds the routing table.
The below figure shows an example of IPv6 route table automatically built by this feature in a four PoP network
cnMaestro dashboard diagrammatically shows the route taken by E2E ↔ cnWave nodes control traffic.
Single PoP network
At the E2E controller, it is necessary to manually configure a IPv6 route to reach the CNs / DNs via PoP. This can be configured from cnMaestro menu: Tools->Settings->IPv6 Routes->Add new. Below picture shows an example. In this example, 8001:1 is PoP’s interface address and face:bc00::/56 is the seed prefix.
When the E2E controller and PoP nodes are in the same subnet, Auto Manage feature automatically adds the IPv6 route (manual addition as described in the above paragraph is no longer required). This feature is disabled by default. It can be enabled by clicking the highlighted check box.
Starting 5.0.0 release, cnMaestro Essential accounts support Auto Manage Routes.