GRE is a non-starter unless you have a Cisco router.
I used to run my GRE tunnels over both real and emulated Cisco routers,
until I discovered Paul's PyDECnet and it was a drop in replacement for
my Cisco.
It's probably the simplest way to get connectivity running. I've setup
my office machine which is GRE connected upstream into HECnet and a
secondary GRE connection to my home where I have another host. DECnet
works exactly as I would expect.
I know we've all said it before, but kudos again to Paul for one of the
most useful pieces of networking code. With DECnet support being
deprecated everywhere (including a broken Linux kernel implementation),
it was refreshing to see something current and working on modern boxes.
Cheers, Wiz!!