Inter-VRF Route Leaking Using Static Routes

VRF route leaking between different VRFs allows you to share selective route information between different VRFs. Inter-VRF route leaking allows leaking of route prefixes from one VRF instance to another VRF instance on the same physical router, which eliminates the need for external routing. This is useful in cases where multiple VRFs share the same path to reach an external domain, while maintaining the internal routing information limited to an individual VRF.

You can use static route leaking to reach remote destinations in another VRF either by providing the next-hop-vrf name or using the outgoing interface of a different VRF while configuring the IPv4 or IPv6 static route. It is recommended to configure an inter-VRF static route with a tag, so that it can be identified across the topology and easily distinguished from other static routes.

Note: Inter-VRF route leaking is limited to only static routes.

Inter-VRF route leaking using static routes supports the following situations:

  • Redistribution of inter-VRF static routes is allowed wherein a leaked static route can be leaked again.
  • The configuration of two static routes to the same destination through paths in different VRFs is allowed and the traffic load balancing will occur based on traffic flows.
  • Recursive inter-VRF static routes are allowed, which means the next hop provided in the configured inter-VRF static route is reachable through another inter-VRF static route. In the supported FastIron devices, the next-hop recursion is disabled by default and can be enabled using the ip route next-hop-recursion command in the VRF where the route is configured.

Parent topic: IPv4 Static Routing