IPv6 gateways route IPv6 traffic to and from virtual private clouds (VPCs). After an IPv6 gateway is created for a VPC, you can purchase an IPv6 Internet bandwidth plan and configure egress-only rules for IPv6 addresses based on your business requirements. This way, you can control the inbound and outbound IPv6 traffic of the VPC in a flexible manner.

Flowchart of using IPv6 gateways

Features

An IPv6 gateway supports the following features:

  • Communication within VPCs

    By default, the Internet bandwidth of an IPv6 address that you apply for a VPC is 0 Mbit/s. IPv6 addresses are used only for communication within VPCs. If you create an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance that has an IPv6 address in a VPC, the ECS instance can access another ECS instance that has an IPv6 address in the same VPC. The ECS instances cannot use IPv6 addresses to access the Internet or provide services to IPv6 clients over the Internet.

  • Communication over the Internet

    • You can purchase an Internet bandwidth plan for an IPv6 address. This way, an ECS instance in a VPC can use the IPv6 address to access the Internet and receive requests from IPv6 clients over the Internet.

    • You can set the Internet bandwidth to 0 Mbit/s for an IPv6 address based on your business requirements. This way, the IPv6 address is used only for communication within VPCs.

    • You can configure egress-only rules for an IPv6 address so that an ECS instance in a VPC can access IPv6 clients on the Internet and deny access from the IPv6 clients.

    • You can delete an egress-only rule as needed. After the rule is deleted, the IPv6 address for which you enable Internet bandwidth can access the Internet, and the ECS instance associated with the IPv6 address can be accessed by IPv6 clients over the Internet.

The communication capabilities of an IPv6 address are determined by the network type, Internet bandwidth, and egress-only rules of the IPv6 address. The following table describes the communication capabilities of an IPv6 address.
Network type Whether an IPv6 Internet bandwidth is enabled Whether an egress-only rule is configured Communication capability
VPC No No Communication within VPCs
Internet Yes No

Communication within VPCs

Communicate over the Internet
Yes

Communication within VPCs

Only access to the Internet is allowed.

Benefits

An IPv6 gateway provides the following benefits:

  • High availability

    IPv6 gateways provide high availability across zones to help you develop extremely stable IPv6 gateway services for communication over the Internet.

  • High performance

    A single IPv6 gateway can provide 10-gigabit throughput to process a large number of requests for Internet access by using IPv6 addresses.

  • Flexible management of communication over the Internet

    You can flexibly manage the Internet communication capabilities of IPv6 addresses by adjusting the Internet bandwidth and configuring egress-only rules.