In computer networking, the Tunnel Setup Protocol (TSP) is a networking control protocol used to negotiate IP tunnel

IP tunnel

An IP tunnel is an Internet Protocol network communications channel between two networks. It is used to transport another network protocol by encapsulation of its packets....

 setup parameters between a tunnel client host and a tunnel broker

Tunnel broker

In the context of computer networking, a tunnel broker is a service which provides a network tunnel. These tunnels can provide encapsulated connectivity over existing infrastructure to a new infrastructure....

 server, the tunnel end-points. The protocol is defined in RFC 5572. A major use of TSP is in IPv6 transition mechanisms.

Parameter negotiation

The TSP protocol performs negotiation of the following parameters:

• User authentication using the Simple Authentication and Security Layer
  Simple Authentication and Security Layer
  Simple Authentication and Security Layer is a framework for authentication and data security in Internet protocols. It decouples authentication mechanisms from application protocols, in theory allowing any authentication mechanism supported by SASL to be used in any application protocol that uses...
  
   (SASL) protocol (RFC 4422).
• Tunnel encapsulation for a variety of tunneling scenarios:
  • IPv6 over IPv4 tunnels (RFC 4213)
  • IPv4 over IPv6 tunnels (RFC 2473)
  • IPv6 over UDP/IPv4 tunnels for built-in traversal of network address translators (NAT)

• IP address
  IP address
  An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
  
   assignment for both tunnel endpoints
• Domain Name System
  Domain name system
  The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
  
   (DNS) registration of end point addresses and reverse DNS
• Tunnel keep-alive mechanism as needed
• IPv6 address prefix assignment for routers
• Routing protocols

TSP Session

A TSP session is initiated by the TSP client in the goal of establishing an end-to-end tunnel with the TSP server (tunnel broker). The session consists of a basic exchange of XML

XML

Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

-encoded data using TCP or UDP. After the negotiation of tunnel setup parameters, the session is terminated and the client undertakes the task of configuring its local tunnel endpoint.