VLAN across a WAN without VLAN's?

Dec 12, 2005 5 Replies

Is there a way to implement VLAN's, or that functionality, over an IP WAN connection?



We have an MPLS network and I want to tie two different VLAN's together across that link. Using VRF-lite, GRE tunnels or whatever other technologies are available as a band-aid, is this possible?


-Bob



If you already have an MPLS network, using one or more Martini tunnels is an obvious way to transport L2 traffic across the WAN. Note that it will be transported over MPLS, not over IP.

Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, snipped-for-privacy@nethelp.no

MPLS is through our provider's IP network. We don't actually run any MPLS on our own routers. If that is still pertinent, I'll look it up.

A VLAN might not be the exact requirement. I want to implement a guest wireless access "vlan" in all my offices, but they have central Internet access only through our corporate headquarters/data center. None of these branch offices have their own Internet (because that would be easy) and I need a way to make sure guest wireless doesn't run with our corporate internal network until it reaches the firewall at the datacenter.

Create a GRE tunnel with the endpoint being on a router facing your firewall

Policy route the guest VLAN traffic into the tunnel at both ends

I've done something like that with OpenVPN and then bridging the Virtual interface with the physical one.

Knowing that my guests will probably run their own VPN client, either IPSEC or GRE based, would that affect the design?

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