Implementing IPv6 Addressing and Basic Connectivity

An aggregatable global address is an IPv6 address from the aggregatable global unicast prefix. The structure of aggregatable global unicast addresses enables strict aggregation of routing prefixes that limits the number of routing table entries in the global routing table. Aggregatable global addresses are used on links that are aggregated upward through organizations, and eventually to the Internet service providers (ISPs).

Aggregatable global IPv6 addresses are defined by a global routing prefix, a subnet ID, and an interface ID. Except for addresses that start with binary 000, all global unicast addresses have a 64-bit interface ID. The IPv6 global unicast address allocation uses the range of addresses that start with binary value 001 (2000::/3). The figure below shows the structure of an aggregatable global address.

Figure 1

Aggregatable Global Address Format

Addresses with a prefix of 2000::/3 (001) through E000::/3 (111) are required to have 64-bit interface identifiers in the extended universal identifier (EUI)-64 format. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocates the IPv6 address space in the range of 2000::/16 to regional registries.

The aggregatable global address typically consists of a 48-bit global routing prefix and a 16-bit subnet ID or Site-Level Aggregator (SLA). In the IPv6 aggregatable global unicast address format document (RFC 2374), the global routing prefix included two other hierarchically structured fields named Top-Level Aggregator (TLA) and Next-Level Aggregator (NLA). The IETF decided to remove the TLS and NLA fields from the RFCs because these fields are policy-based. Some existing IPv6 networks deployed before the change might still be using networks based on the older architecture.

A 16-bit subnet field called the subnet ID could be used by individual organizations to create their own local addressing hierarchy and to identify subnets. A subnet ID is similar to a subnet in IPv4, except that an organization with an IPv6 subnet ID can support up to 65,535 individual subnets.

An interface ID is used to identify interfaces on a link. The interface ID must be unique to the link. It may also be unique over a broader scope. In many cases, an interface ID will be the same as or based on the link-layer address of an interface. Interface IDs used in aggregatable global unicast and other IPv6 address types must be 64 bits long and constructed in the modified EUI-64 format.

Interface IDs are constructed in the modified EUI-64 format in one of the following ways:

• For all IEEE 802 interface types (for example, Ethernet, and FDDI interfaces), the first three octets (24 bits) are taken from the Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) of the 48-bit link-layer address (the Media Access Control [MAC] address) of the interface, the fourth and fifth octets (16 bits) are a fixed hexadecimal value of FFFE, and the last three octets (24 bits) are taken from the last three octets of the MAC address. The construction of the interface ID is completed by setting the Universal/Local (U/L) bit--the seventh bit of the first octet--to a value of 0 or 1. A value of 0 indicates a locally administered identifier; a value of 1 indicates a globally unique IPv6 interface identifier.
• For other interface types (for example, serial, loopback, ATM, Frame Relay, and tunnel interface types--except tunnel interfaces used with IPv6 overlay tunnels), the interface ID is constructed in the same way as the interface ID for IEEE 802 interface types; however, the first MAC address from the pool of MAC addresses in the router is used to construct the identifier (because the interface does not have a MAC address).
• For tunnel interface types that are used with IPv6 overlay tunnels, the interface ID is the IPv4 address assigned to the tunnel interface with all zeros in the high-order 32 bits of the identifier.

  Note

  For interfaces using Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), given that the interfaces at both ends of the connection might have the same MAC address, the interface identifiers used at both ends of the connection are negotiated (picked randomly and, if necessary, reconstructed) until both identifiers are unique. The first MAC address in the router is used to construct the identifier for interfaces using PPP.

If no IEEE 802 interface types are in the router, link-local IPv6 addresses are generated on the interfaces in the router in the following sequence:

1. The router is queried for MAC addresses (from the pool of MAC addresses in the router).
2. If no MAC addresses are available in the router, the serial number of the router is used to form the link-local addresses.
3. If the serial number of the router cannot be used to form the link-local addresses, the router uses a message digest algorithm 5 (MD5) hash to determine the MAC address of the router from the hostname of the router.

A link-local address is an IPv6 unicast address that can be automatically configured on any interface using the link-local prefix FE80::/10 (1111 1110 10) and the interface identifier in the modified EUI-64 format. Link-local addresses are used in the neighbor discovery protocol and the stateless autoconfiguration process. Nodes on a local link can use link-local addresses to communicate; the nodes do not need globally unique addresses to communicate. The figure below shows the structure of a link-local address.

IPv6 routers must not forward packets that have link-local source or destination addresses to other links.

Figure 2

Link-Local Address Format

An IPv4-compatible IPv6 address is an IPv6 unicast address that has zeros in the high-order 96 bits of the address and an IPv4 address in the low-order 32 bits of the address. The format of an IPv4-compatible IPv6 address is 0:0:0:0:0:0:A.B.C.D or ::A.B.C.D. The entire 128-bit IPv4-compatible IPv6 address is used as the IPv6 address of a node and the IPv4 address embedded in the low-order 32 bits is used as the IPv4 address of the node. IPv4-compatible IPv6 addresses are assigned to nodes that support both the IPv4 and IPv6 protocol stacks and are used in automatic tunnels. The figure below shows the structure of an IPv4-compatible IPv6 address and a few acceptable formats for the address.

Figure 3

IPv4-Compatible IPv6 Address Format

A unique local address is an IPv6 unicast address that is globally unique and is intended for local communications. They are not expected to be routable on the global Internet and are routable inside of a limited area, such as a site. They may also be routed between a limited set of sites.

A unique local address has the following characteristics:

• It has a globally unique prefix (that is, it has a high probability of uniqueness).
• It has a well-known prefix to allow for easy filtering at site boundaries.
• It allows sites to be combined or privately interconnected without creating any address conflicts or requiring renumbering of interfaces that use these prefixes.
• It is ISP-independent and can be used for communications inside of a site without having any permanent or intermittent Internet connectivity.
• If it is accidentally leaked outside of a site via routing or DNS, there is no conflict with any other addresses.
• Applications may treat unique local addresses like global scoped addresses.

The figure below shows the structure of a unique local address.

Figure 4

Unique Local Address Structure

• Site-Local Address

An IPv6 address must be configured on an interface before the interface can forward IPv6 traffic. Configuring a site-local or global IPv6 address on an interface automatically configures a link-local address and activates IPv6 for that interface. Additionally, the configured interface automatically joins the following required multicast groups for that link:

• Solicited-node multicast group FF02:0:0:0:0:1:FF00::/104 for each unicast and anycast address assigned to the interface

  Note	The solicited-node multicast address is used in the neighbor discovery process.

• All-nodes link-local multicast group FF02::1
• All-routers link-local multicast group FF02::2

Use the Unicast RPF feature to mitigate problems caused by malformed or forged (spoofed) IPv6 source addresses that pass through an IPv6 router. Malformed or forged source addresses can indicate denial-of-service (DoS) attacks based on source IPv6 address spoofing.

When Unicast RPF is enabled on an interface, the router examines all packets received on that interface. The router verifies that the source address appears in the routing table and matches the interface on which the packet was received. This "look backward" ability is available only when Cisco Express Forwarding is enabled on the router, because the lookup relies on the presence of the FIB. Cisco Express Forwarding generates the FIB as part of its operation.

Note	Unicast RPF is an input function and is applied only on the input interface of a router at the upstream end of a connection.

The Unicast RPF feature verifies whether any packet received at a router interface arrives on one of the best return paths to the source of the packet. The feature performs a reverse lookup in the Cisco Express Forwarding table. If Unicast RPF does not find a reverse path for the packet, Unicast RPF can drop or forward the packet, depending on whether an access control list (ACL) is specified. If an ACL is specified, then when (and only when) a packet fails the Unicast RPF check, the ACL is checked to verify if the packet should be dropped (using a deny statement in the ACL) or forwarded (using a permit statement in the ACL). Whether a packet is dropped or forwarded, the packet is counted in the global IP traffic statistics for Unicast RPF drops and in the interface statistics for Unicast RPF.

If no ACL is specified, the router drops the forged or malformed packet immediately and no ACL logging occurs. The router and interface Unicast RPF counters are updated.

Unicast RPF events can be logged by specifying the logging option for the ACL entries. Log information can be used to gather information about the attack, such as source address and time.

Note	With Unicast RPF, all equal-cost "best" return paths are considered valid. Unicast RPF works in cases where multiple return paths exist, provided that each path is equal to the others in terms of the routing cost (number of hops, weights, and so on) and as long as the route is in the FIB.

The IPv6 ICMP rate limiting feature implements a token bucket algorithm for limiting the rate at which IPv6 ICMP error messages are sent out on the network. The initial implementation of IPv6 ICMP rate limiting defined a fixed interval between error messages, but some applications such as traceroute often require replies to a group of requests sent in rapid succession. The fixed interval between error messages is not flexible enough to work with applications such as traceroute and can cause the application to fail.

Implementing a token bucket scheme allows a number of tokens--representing the ability to send one error message each--to be stored in a virtual bucket. The maximum number of tokens allowed in the bucket can be specified, and for every error message to be sent, one token is removed from the bucket. If a series of error messages is generated, error messages can be sent until the bucket is empty. When the bucket is empty of tokens, no IPv6 ICMP error messages are sent until a new token is placed in the bucket. The token bucket algorithm does not increase the average rate limiting time interval, and it is more flexible than the fixed time interval scheme.

IPv6 neighbor discovery supports stateful switchover (SSO) using Cisco Express Forwarding. When switchover occurs, the Cisco Express Forwarding adjacency state, which is checkpointed, is used to reconstruct the neighbor discovery cache.

A value of 135 in the Type field of the ICMP packet header identifies a neighbor solicitation message. Neighbor solicitation messages are sent on the local link when a node wants to determine the link-layer address of another node on the same local link (see the figure below). When a node wants to determine the link-layer address of another node, the source address in a neighbor solicitation message is the IPv6 address of the node sending the neighbor solicitation message. The destination address in the neighbor solicitation message is the solicited-node multicast address that corresponds to the IPv6 address of the destination node. The neighbor solicitation message also includes the link-layer address of the source node.

Figure 12

IPv6 Neighbor Discovery--Neighbor Solicitation Message

After receiving the neighbor solicitation message, the destination node replies by sending a neighbor advertisement message, which has a value of 136 in the Type field of the ICMP packet header, on the local link. The source address in the neighbor advertisement message is the IPv6 address of the node (more specifically, the IPv6 address of the node interface) sending the neighbor advertisement message. The destination address in the neighbor advertisement message is the IPv6 address of the node that sent the neighbor solicitation message. The data portion of the neighbor advertisement message includes the link-layer address of the node sending the neighbor advertisement message.

After the source node receives the neighbor advertisement, the source node and destination node can communicate.

Neighbor solicitation messages are also used to verify the reachability of a neighbor after the link-layer address of a neighbor is identified. When a node wants to verifying the reachability of a neighbor, the destination address in a neighbor solicitation message is the unicast address of the neighbor.

Neighbor advertisement messages are also sent when there is a change in the link-layer address of a node on a local link. When there is such a change, the destination address for the neighbor advertisement is the all-nodes multicast address.

Neighbor solicitation messages are also used to verify the reachability of a neighbor after the link-layer address of a neighbor is identified. Neighbor unreachability detection identifies the failure of a neighbor or the failure of the forward path to the neighbor, and is used for all paths between hosts and neighboring nodes (hosts or routers). Neighbor unreachability detection is performed for neighbors to which only unicast packets are being sent and is not performed for neighbors to which multicast packets are being sent.

A neighbor is considered reachable when a positive acknowledgment is returned from the neighbor (indicating that packets previously sent to the neighbor have been received and processed). A positive acknowledgment--from an upper-layer protocol (such as TCP)--indicates that a connection is making forward progress (reaching its destination) or the receipt of a neighbor advertisement message in response to a neighbor solicitation message. If packets are reaching the peer, they are also reaching the next-hop neighbor of the source. Therefore, forward progress is also a confirmation that the next-hop neighbor is reachable.

For destinations that are not on the local link, forward progress implies that the first-hop router is reachable. When acknowledgments from an upper-layer protocol are not available, a node probes the neighbor using unicast neighbor solicitation messages to verify that the forward path is still working.

The return of a solicited neighbor advertisement message from the neighbor is a positive acknowledgment that the forward path is still working (neighbor advertisement messages that have the solicited flag set to a value of 1 are sent only in response to a neighbor solicitation message). Unsolicited messages confirm only the one-way path from the source to the destination node; solicited neighbor advertisement messages indicate that a path is working in both directions.

Note	A neighbor advertisement message that has the solicited flag set to a value of 0 must not be considered as a positive acknowledgment that the forward path is still working.

Neighbor solicitation messages are also used in the stateless autoconfiguration process to verify the uniqueness of unicast IPv6 addresses before the addresses are assigned to an interface. Duplicate address detection is performed first on a new, link-local IPv6 address before the address is assigned to an interface (the new address remains in a tentative state while duplicate address detection is performed). Specifically, a node sends a neighbor solicitation message with an unspecified source address and a tentative link-local address in the body of the message. If another node is already using that address, the node returns a neighbor advertisement message that contains the tentative link-local address. If another node is simultaneously verifying the uniqueness of the same address, that node also returns a neighbor solicitation message. If no neighbor advertisement messages are received in response to the neighbor solicitation message and no neighbor solicitation messages are received from other nodes that are attempting to verify the same tentative address, the node that sent the original neighbor solicitation message considers the tentative link-local address to be unique and assigns the address to the interface.

Every IPv6 unicast address (global or link-local) must be verified for uniqueness on the link; however, until the uniqueness of the link-local address is verified, duplicate address detection is not performed on any other IPv6 addresses associated with the link-local address. The Cisco implementation of duplicate address detection in the Cisco IOS software does not verify the uniqueness of anycast or global addresses that are generated from 64-bit interface identifiers.

The enhanced IPv6 neighbor discovery cache management feature optimizes IPv6 neighbor discovery by providing ND cache autorefresh, unsolicited neighbor advertisement (NA) gleaning, and neighbor unreachability detection (NUD) exponential retransmit.

The neighbor discovery protocol enforces NUD, which can detect failing nodes or routers and changes to link-layer addresses. NUD is used to maintain reachability information for all paths between hosts and neighboring nodes, including host-to-host, host-to-router, and router-to-host communication.

The neighbor cache maintains mapping information about the IPv6 link-local or global address to the link-layer address. The neighbor cache also maintains the neighbor's reachability state, which is updated using NUD. Neighbors can be in one of the following five possible states:

• INCOMPLETE--Address resolution is in progress, and the link-layer address is not yet known.
• REACHABLE--Neighbor is known to be reachable within the last reachable time interval.
• STALE--Neighbor requires re-resolution, and traffic may flow to this neighbor.
• DELAY--Neighbor is pending re-resolution, and traffic might flow to this neighbor.
• PROBE--Neighbor re-resolution is in progress, and traffic might flow to this neighbor.

Router advertisement (RA) messages, which have a value of 134 in the Type field of the ICMP packet header, are periodically sent out each configured interface of an IPv6 router. For stateless autoconfiguration to work properly, the advertised prefix length in RA messages must always be 64 bits.

The RA messages are sent to the all-nodes multicast address (see the figure below).

Figure 13

IPv6 Neighbor Discovery--RA Message

RA messages typically include the following information:

• One or more onlink IPv6 prefixes that nodes on the local link can use to automatically configure their IPv6 addresses
• Lifetime information for each prefix included in the advertisement
• Sets of flags that indicate the type of autoconfiguration (stateless or stateful) that can be completed
• Default router information (whether the router sending the advertisement should be used as a default router and, if so, the amount of time (in seconds) the router should be used as a default router)
• Additional information for hosts, such as the hop limit and MTU a host should use in packets that it originates

RAs are also sent in response to router solicitation messages. Router solicitation messages, which have a value of 133 in the Type field of the ICMP packet header, are sent by hosts at system startup so that the host can immediately autoconfigure without needing to wait for the next scheduled RA message. Given that router solicitation messages are usually sent by hosts at system startup (the host does not have a configured unicast address), the source address in router solicitation messages is usually the unspecified IPv6 address (0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0). If the host has a configured unicast address, the unicast address of the interface sending the router solicitation message is used as the source address in the message. The destination address in router solicitation messages is the all-routers multicast address with a scope of the link. When an RA is sent in response to a router solicitation, the destination address in the RA message is the unicast address of the source of the router solicitation message.

The following RA message parameters can be configured:

• The time interval between periodic RA messages
• The "router lifetime" value, which indicates the usefulness of a router as the default router (for use by all nodes on a given link)
• The network prefixes in use on a given link
• The time interval between neighbor solicitation message retransmissions (on a given link)
• The amount of time a node considers a neighbor reachable (for use by all nodes on a given link)

The configured parameters are specific to an interface. The sending of RA messages (with default values) is automatically enabled on Ethernet and FDDI interfaces when the ipv6 unicast-routing command is configured. For other interface types, the sending of RA messages must be manually configured by using the no ipv6 nd ra suppress command. The sending of RA messages can be disabled on individual interfaces by using the ipv6 nd ra suppress command.

• Default Router Preferences for Traffic Engineering

A value of 137 in the type field of the ICMP packet header identifies an IPv6 neighbor redirect message. Routers send neighbor redirect messages to inform hosts of better first-hop nodes on the path to a destination (see the figure below).

Figure 14

IPv6 Neighbor Discovery--Neighbor Redirect Message

Note

A router must be able to determine the link-local address for each of its neighboring routers in order to ensure that the target address (the final destination) in a redirect message identifies the neighbor router by its link-local address. For static routing, the address of the next-hop router should be specified using the link-local address of the router; for dynamic routing, all IPv6 routing protocols must exchange the link-local addresses of neighboring routers.

After forwarding a packet, a router should send a redirect message to the source of the packet under the following circumstances:

• The destination address of the packet is not a multicast address.
• The packet was not addressed to the router.
• The packet is about to be sent out the interface on which it was received.
• The router determines that a better first-hop node for the packet resides on the same link as the source of the packet.
• The source address of the packet is a global IPv6 address of a neighbor on the same link, or a link-local address.

Use the ipv6 icmp error-interval command to limit the rate at which the router generates all IPv6 ICMP error messages, including neighbor redirect messages, which ultimately reduces link-layer congestion.

Note	A router must not update its routing tables after receiving a neighbor redirect message, and hosts must not originate neighbor redirect messages.

The number of entries in the Neighbor Discovery cache can be limited by interface. Once the limit is reached, no new entries are allowed. The per-interface Neighbor Discovery cache limit function can be used to prevent any particular customer attached to an interface from overloading the Neighbor Discovery cache, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

When this feature is enabled globally, a common per-interface cache size limit is configured on all interfaces on the router. When this feature is enabled per interface, a cache size limit is configured on the associated interface. The per-interface limit overrides any globally configured limit.

All interfaces on IPv6 nodes must have a link-local address, which is usually automatically configured from the identifier for an interface and the link-local prefix FE80::/10. A link-local address enables a node to communicate with other nodes on the link and can be used to further configure the node.

Nodes can connect to a network and automatically generate global IPv6 addresses without the need for manual configuration or help of a server, such as a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server. With IPv6, a router on the link advertises in RA messages any global prefixes, and its willingness to function as a default router for the link. RA messages are sent periodically and in response to router solicitation messages, which are sent by hosts at system startup.

A node on the link can automatically configure global IPv6 addresses by appending its interface identifier (64 bits) to the prefixes (64 bits) included in the RA messages. The resulting 128-bit IPv6 addresses configured by the node are then subjected to duplicate address detection to ensure their uniqueness on the link. If the prefixes advertised in the RA messages are globally unique, then the IPv6 addresses configured by the node are also guaranteed to be globally unique. Router solicitation messages, which have a value of 133 in the Type field of the ICMP packet header, are sent by hosts at system startup so that the host can immediately autoconfigure without needing to wait for the next scheduled RA message.

The strict aggregation of the global routing table requires that networks be renumbered when the service provider for the network is changed. When the stateless autoconfiguration functionality in IPv6 is used to renumber a network, the prefix from a new service provider is added to RA messages that are sent on the link. (The RA messages contain both the prefix from the old service provider and the prefix from the new service provider.) Nodes on the link automatically configure additional addresses by using the prefix from the new service provider. The nodes can then use the addresses created from the new prefix and the existing addresses created from the old prefix on the link. Configuration of the lifetime parameters associated with the old and new prefixes means that nodes on the link can make the transition to using only addresses created from the new prefix. During a transition period, the old prefix is removed from RA messages and only addresses that contain the new prefix are used on the link (the renumbering is complete) (see the figure below).

Figure 15

IPv6 Network Renumbering for Hosts Using Stateless Autoconfiguration

The upper 64 bits of an IPv6 address are composed from a global routing prefix plus a subnet ID, as defined in RFC 3513. A general prefix (for example, /48) holds a short prefix, based on which a number of longer, more specific prefixes (for example, /64) can be defined. When the general prefix is changed, all of the more specific prefixes based on it will change, too. This function greatly simplifies network renumbering and allows for automated prefix definition.

For example, a general prefix might be 48 bits long ("/48") and the more specific prefixes generated from it might be 64 bits long ("/64"). In the following example, the leftmost 48 bits of all the specific prefixes will be the same--and the same as the general prefix itself. The next 16 bits are all different.

• General prefix: 2001:DB8:2222::/48
• Specific prefix: 2001:DB8:2222:0000::/64
• Specific prefix: 2001:DB8:2222:0001::/64
• Specific prefix: 2001:DB8:2222:4321::/64
• Specific prefix: 2001:DB8:2222:7744::/64

General prefixes can be defined in several ways:

• Manually
• Based on a 6to4 interface
• Dynamically, from a prefix received by a DHCP for IPv6 prefix delegation client

More specific prefixes, based on a general prefix, can be used when configuring IPv6 on an interface.

DHCP for IPv6 can be used in environments to deliver stateful and stateless information. For further information about this feature, see Implementing DHCP for IPv6.

IPv6 for Cisco IOS software supports wide-area networking technologies such as Cisco HDLC, PoS, ISDN, and serial (synchronous and asynchronous) interface types, ATM PVCs, and Frame Relay PVCs. These technologies function the same in IPv6 as they do in IPv4--IPv6 does not enhance the technologies in any way.

Broadcast and multicast are used in LANs to map protocol (network layer) addresses to the hardware addresses of remote nodes (hosts and routers). Because using broadcast and multicast to map network layer addresses to hardware addresses in circuit-based WANs such as ATM and Frame Relay networks is difficult to implement, these networks utilize implicit, explicit, and dynamic mappings for the network layer addresses of remote nodes and the PVCs used to reach the addresses.

Assigning an IPv6 address to an interface by using the ipv6 address command defines the IPv6 addresses for the interface and the network that is directly connected to the interface. If only one PVC is terminated on the interface (the interface is a point-to-point interface), there is an implicit mapping between all of the IPv6 addresses on the network and the PVC used to reach the addresses (no additional address mappings are needed). If several PVCs are terminated on the interface (the interface is a point-to-multipoint interface), the protocol ipv6 command (for ATM networks) or the frame-relay map ipv6 command (for Frame Relay networks) is used to configure explicit mappings between the IPv6 addresses of the remote nodes and the PVCs used to reach the addresses.

Note

Given that IPv6 supports multiple address types, and depending on which applications or protocols are configured on a point-to-multipoint interface, you may need to configure multiple explicit mappings between the IPv6 addresses of the interface and the PVC used to reach the addresses. For example, explicitly mapping both the link-local and global IPv6 address of a point-to-multipoint interface to the PVC on which the interface terminates ensures that the Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) configured on the interface forwards traffic to and from the PVC correctly.

• Configuring a Neighbor Discovery Cache Limit on a Specified Router Interface
• Configuring a Neighbor Discovery Cache Limit on All Router Interfaces

SUMMARY STEPS

1.    enable

2.    configure terminal

3.    interface type number

4.    ipv6 nd nud retry base interval max-attempts

5.    ipv6 nd cache expire expire-time-in-seconds [refresh]

6.    ipv6 nd na glean

1.    enable

2.    configure terminal

3.    ipv6 general-prefix prefix-name {ipv6-prefix/prefix-length | 6to4 interface-type interface-number}

1.    enable

2.    configure terminal

3.    ipv6 general-prefix prefix-name {ipv6-prefix/prefix-length | 6to4 interface-type interface-number}

You can define a general prefix dynamically using the DHCP for IPv6 prefix delegation client function. For information on how to perform this task, see the Implementing DHCP for IPv6 module.

1.    enable

2.    configure terminal

3.    interface type number

4.    ipv6 address { ipv6-address/prefix-length | prefix-name sub-bits/prefix-length}

Before You Begin

To enable the router to forward Cisco Express Forwarding and distributed Cisco Express Forwarding traffic, use the ipv6 unicast-routing command to configure the forwarding of IPv6 unicast datagrams globally on the router, and use the ipv6 address command to configure IPv6 address and IPv6 processing on an interface.

You must enable Cisco Express Forwarding for IPv4 globally on the router by using the ip cef command before enabling Cisco Express Forwarding for IPv6 globally on the router.

You must enable distributed Cisco Express Forwarding for IPv4 by using the ip cef distributed command before enabling distributed Cisco Express Forwarding for IPv6.

Note

The ipv6 cef and ipv6 cef distributed commands are not supported on the GSRs because this distributed platform operates only in distributed Cisco Express Forwarding mode. In Cisco IOS Release 12.0(22)S or later releases, the following restrictions apply to nondistributed and distributed architecture platforms configured for Cisco Express Forwarding and distributed Cisco Express Forwarding: IPv6 packets that have global source and destination addresses are Cisco Express Forwarding-switched or distributed Cisco Express Forwarding-switched. IPv6 packets that have link-local source and destination addresses are process-switched. IPv6 packets that are tunneled within manually configured IPv6 tunnels are Cisco Express Forwarding-switched. Only the following interface and encapsulation types are supported: ATM PVC and ATM LANE Cisco HDLC Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, and Gigabit Ethernet FDDI Frame Relay PVC PPP over Packet over SONET, ISDN, and serial (synchronous and asynchronous) interface types The following interface and encapsulation types are not supported: HP 100VG-AnyLAN Switched Multimegabit Data Service (SMDS) Token Ring X.25

Note	By default, the GSRs support only distributed Cisco Express Forwarding (Cisco Express Forwarding switching is performed by the line cards).

Note	Contact your local Cisco Systems account representative for specific Cisco Express Forwarding and distributed Cisco Express Forwarding hardware restrictions.

1.    enable

2.    configure terminal

3.   Do one of the following:

4.    ipv6 cef accounting [non-recursive | per-prefix | prefix-length]

Before You Begin

To use Unicast RPF, enable Cisco Express Forwarding switching or distributed Cisco Express Forwarding switching in the router. There is no need to configure the input interface for Cisco Express Forwarding switching. As long as Cisco Express Forwarding is running on the router, individual interfaces can be configured with other switching modes.

Note	It is very important for Cisco Express Forwarding to be configured globally in the router. Unicast RPF will not work without Cisco Express Forwarding.

Note

Unicast RPF should not be used on interfaces that are internal to the network. Internal interfaces are likely to have routing asymmetry, meaning that there are multiple routes to the source of a packet. Unicast RPF should be applied only where there is natural or configured symmetry. For example, routers at the edge of the network of an ISP are more likely to have symmetrical reverse paths than routers that are in the core of the ISP network. Routers that are in the core of the ISP network have no guarantee that the best forwarding path out of the router will be the path selected for packets returning to the router. Therefore, we do not recommend that you apply Unicast RPF where there is a chance of asymmetric routing. It is simplest to place Unicast RPF only at the edge of a network or, for an ISP, at the customer edge of the network.

1.    enable

2.    configure terminal

3.    interface type number

4.    ipv6 verify unicast source reachable-via {rx | any} [allow-default] [allow-self-ping] [access-list-name]