IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
RFC 4862
| Document | Type |
RFC - Draft Standard
(September 2007; Errata)
Updated by RFC 7527
Obsoletes RFC 2462
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Thomas Narten , Tatsuya Jinmei , Susan Thomson | ||
| Last updated | 2015-10-14 | ||
| Stream | IETF | ||
| Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized bibtex | ||
| Stream | WG state | (None) | |
| Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
| IESG | IESG state | RFC 4862 (Draft Standard) | |
| Action Holders |
(None)
|
||
| Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| Telechat date | |||
| Responsible AD | Margaret Cullen | ||
| Send notices to | (None) | ||
Network Working Group S. Thomson
Request for Comments: 4862 Cisco
Obsoletes: 2462 T. Narten
Category: Standards Track IBM
T. Jinmei
Toshiba
September 2007
IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
This document specifies the steps a host takes in deciding how to
autoconfigure its interfaces in IP version 6. The autoconfiguration
process includes generating a link-local address, generating global
addresses via stateless address autoconfiguration, and the Duplicate
Address Detection procedure to verify the uniqueness of the addresses
on a link.
Thomson, et al. Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 4862 IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration September 2007
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Design Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Protocol Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1. Site Renumbering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. Protocol Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1. Node Configuration Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2. Autoconfiguration-Related Structures . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.3. Creation of Link-Local Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.4. Duplicate Address Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.4.1. Message Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.4.2. Sending Neighbor Solicitation Messages . . . . . . . . 14
5.4.3. Receiving Neighbor Solicitation Messages . . . . . . . 15
5.4.4. Receiving Neighbor Advertisement Messages . . . . . . 16
5.4.5. When Duplicate Address Detection Fails . . . . . . . . 17
5.5. Creation of Global Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.5.1. Soliciting Router Advertisements . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.5.2. Absence of Router Advertisements . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.5.3. Router Advertisement Processing . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.5.4. Address Lifetime Expiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.6. Configuration Consistency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.7. Retaining Configured Addresses for Stability . . . . . . . 22
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Appendix A. Loopback Suppression and Duplicate Address
Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Appendix B. Changes since RFC 1971 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Appendix C. Changes since RFC 2462 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Thomson, et al. Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 4862 IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration September 2007
1. Introduction
This document specifies the steps a host takes in deciding how to
autoconfigure its interfaces in IP version 6 (IPv6). The
autoconfiguration process includes generating a link-local address,
generating global addresses via stateless address autoconfiguration,
and the Duplicate Address Detection procedure to verify the
uniqueness of the addresses on a link.
The IPv6 stateless autoconfiguration mechanism requires no manual
configuration of hosts, minimal (if any) configuration of routers,
and no additional servers. The stateless mechanism allows a host to
generate its own addresses using a combination of locally available
information and information advertised by routers. Routers advertise
prefixes that identify the subnet(s) associated with a link, while
hosts generate an "interface identifier" that uniquely identifies an
interface on a subnet. An address is formed by combining the two.
In the absence of routers, a host can only generate link-local
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