Appendix G IPv6

•Neighbor advertisement: A response from a node to announce its link-layer address.

•Router solicitation: A request from a host to locate a router that can act as the default router and forward packets.

•Router advertisement: A response to a router solicitation or a periodical multicast advertisement from a router to advertise its presence and other parameters.

IPv6 Cache

An IPv6 host is required to have a neighbor cache, destination cache, prefix list and default router list. The NBG4615 maintains and updates its IPv6 caches constantly using the information from response messages. In IPv6, the NBG4615 configures a link-local address automatically, and then sends a neighbor solicitation message to check if the address is unique. If there is an address to be resolved or verified, the NBG4615 also sends out a neighbor solicitation message. When the NBG4615 receives a neighbor advertisement in response, it stores the neighbor’s link-layer address in the neighbor cache. When the NBG4615 uses a router solicitation message to query for a router and receives a router advertisement message, it adds the router’s information to the neighbor cache, prefix list and destination cache. The NBG4615 creates an entry in the default router list cache if the router can be used as a default router.

When the NBG4615 needs to send a packet, it first consults the destination cache to determine the next hop. If there is no matching entry in the destination cache, the NBG4615 uses the prefix list to determine whether the destination address is on-link and can be reached directly without passing through a router. If the address is unlink, the address is considered as the next hop. Otherwise, the NBG4615 determines the next-hop from the default router list or routing table. Once the next hop IP address is known, the NBG4615 looks into the neighbor cache to get the link-layer address and sends the packet when the neighbor is reachable. If the NBG4615 cannot find an entry in the neighbor cache or the state for the neighbor is not reachable, it starts the address resolution process. This helps reduce the number of IPv6 solicitation and advertisement messages.

Multicast Listener Discovery

The Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) protocol (defined in RFC 2710) is derived from IPv4's Internet Group Management Protocol version 2 (IGMPv2). MLD uses ICMPv6 message types, rather than IGMP message types. MLDv1 is equivalent to IGMPv2 and MLDv2 is equivalent to IGMPv3.

MLD allows an IPv6 switch or router to discover the presence of MLD listeners who wish to receive multicast packets and the IP addresses of multicast groups the hosts want to join on its network.

MLD snooping and MLD proxy are analogous to IGMP snooping and IGMP proxy in IPv4.

MLD filtering controls which multicast groups a port can join.

MLD Messages

A multicast router or switch periodically sends general queries to MLD hosts to update the multicast forwarding table. When an MLD host wants to join a multicast group, it sends an MLD Report message for that address.

An MLD Done message is equivalent to an IGMP Leave message. When an MLD host wants to leave a multicast group, it can send a Done message to the router or switch. The router or switch then sends a group-specific query to the port on which the Done message is received to determine if other devices connected to this port should remain in the group.

 

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