Prisma SD-WAN
XLAT464
Table of Contents
XLAT464
Learn how XLAT464 connects IPv4 only clients to IPv4 servers.
| Where Can I Use This? | What Do I Need? |
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Purpose
The XLAT464 use case allows an IPv4-only client to connect to an IPv4-only server by
traversing an IPv6-only network segment. It essentially encapsulates an IPv4
communication flow within an IPv6 transport layer.
Mechanism
This is a two-stage translation process involving a client-side translator and a
provider-side translator.
- The IPv4 client sends a standard IPv4 packet to the destination IPv4 server.
- A client-side translator (for example, Prisma SD-WAN) intercepts the packet. It performs source IPv4 to IPv6 translation and maps the destination IPv4 address into an IPv6 address using a well-known prefix (64:ff9b::/96).
- This newly created IPv6 packet is sent across the IPv6 network.
- A provider-side translator (a NAT64 gateway) receives the IPv6 packet. It performs the reverse operation: it removes the prefix to find the original IPv4 destination and translates the source IPv6 address back to an IPv4 address from its own NAT pool.
Example Workflow
- An IPv4 Client at 192.168.1.2 sends a packet to an IPv4 Application Server at 203.0.113.10.
- The Prisma SD-WAN device intercepts the IPv4 packet and translates it to IPv6. The new source is its WAN IP (2001:db8:2001::1), and the destination is the server's IPv4 mapped into the prefix (64:ff9b::cb00:710a).
- This IPv6 packet travels across the network to the NAT64 Gateway.
- The gateway translates the packet back to IPv4. The source becomes an address from its NAT pool (192.0.10.10), and the destination becomes the original server address (203.0.113.10) after stripping the prefix.
- The final IPv4 packet is delivered to the server.