Cisco IOS Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Tunneling with Dynamic Routing Protocols

Problem

You need to pass a dynamic routing protocol through your tunnels.

Solution

Dynamic routing and tunnels can be a dangerous combination. It is critical to ensure that the routers never get confused and think that the best path to the tunnel destination is through the tunnel itself. We offer three different ways of resolving this problem.

The first is to use static routes for the tunnel destination address:

Router1#configure terminal 
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Router1(config)#interface Tunnel1
Router1(config-if)#ip address 192.168.35.6 255.255.255.252
Router1(config-if)#tunnel source 172.25.1.5
Router1(config-if)#tunnel destination 172.22.1.2
Router1(config-if)#exit
Router1(config)#ip route 172.22.1.2 255.255.255.255 172.25.1.1
Router1(config)#router eigrp 55
Router1(config-router)#network 192.168.35.0
Router1(config-router)#exit
Router1(config)#end
Router1#

The second method simply excludes the tunnel’s IP address range from the routing protocol. You can then run a different routing protocol for the addresses that you want to pass through the tunnel:

Router1#configure terminal 
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Router1(config)#interface Tunnel1
Router1(config-if)#ip address 192.168.35.6 255.255.255.252
Router1(config-if)#tunnel source 172.25.1.5
Router1(config-if)#tunnel destination 172.22.1.2
Router1(config-if)#exit
Router1(config)#router eigrp 55
Router1(config-router)#network ...