CODEWITHSUNDEEP
amazon-web-servicesamazon-vpc
n00b
n00b

Reputation: 6360

AWS VPC Peering and route tables

Do route tables need to be enabled in both the sending and receiving VPCs/subnets for traffic to flow?

I have configured 2 VPCs that I have peered but would like traffic only to flow in one direction from VPC A to VPC B. Is this possible?

I played around with the VPCs and route tables but had to configure route tables in both VPC A and B so that they could route traffic to each other through the VPC peering connection. Is bi-directional traffic the only solution or is it possible to have traffic flow in one direction only? i.e. only allow requests to originate from VPC A but allow VPC B to return responses back.

My initial assumption was that one way traffic was supported so I had configured route tables in VPC A so that traffic could be routed to VPC B through VPC peering connection. However as there was no corresponding route in VPC B it seemed like the ping response could not find its route back to VPC A.

Also is there documentation on this? I had a read through the AWS docs (including route table basics) but couldn't seem to find anything that addressed my question.

Upvotes: 9

Views: 13566

Answers (5)

Alex W
Alex W

Reputation: 176

No, we have to setup the route tables on both sides to make the VPC peering works. But instead of VPC peering, we can use another way to let a node to be unaccessible, like Joseph said, using a security group.

Upvotes: 0

Joseph Priolo
Joseph Priolo

Reputation: 81

If you're concerned with traffic going in one direction, simply block that side via the Security Group around the instance(s) you don't want receiving traffic.

  • But, yes, routes need to be added to both VPC's route tables.

cheers!

Joseph P.

Upvotes: 8

Kelly Setzer
Kelly Setzer

Reputation: 304

The reply from Ryan Harris is very important. TCP/IP is bi-directional - packets have to flow in both directions. Therefore RouteTables and NACLs have to be configured to allow that from both VPCs (or subnets).

I think a great deal of the confusion on that point arises from all the consumer-grade routers use NAT and automatically generate reciprocal rules when "allowing" a particular port/application.

Upvotes: 3

Michael - sqlbot
Michael - sqlbot

Reputation: 179364

Docs:

To send traffic from your instance to an instance in a peer VPC using private IPv4 addresses, you must add a route to the route table that's associated with the subnet in which the instance resides.

...

The owner of the other VPC in the peering connection must also add a route to their subnet's route table to direct traffic back to your VPC.

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonVPC/latest/PeeringGuide/vpc-peering-routing.html

Route tables don't simply tell instances on my networks how to initiate connections to yours. They also tell my instances how to reply to you when you try to establish a connection to me. The same applies on the other side. Routes are required in both directions, at least for TCP and ICMP. UDP might work without route symmetry but that's still wrong, since incoming UDP messages can trigger ICMP responses, so symmetric routes are still correct, even if there are cases where it is not strictly mandatory.

Upvotes: 20

Henry
Henry

Reputation: 1686

You can use a NACL to deny traffic outflow from one to the other. For example, VPC A has a NACL to allow flow out to VPC B, and VPC B has a NACL to allow inflow from VPC A.

Upvotes: 0

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