Technical data

BMD00136, November 2009 171
CHAPTER 12
IPv6 Host Management
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is a network layer protocol intended to expand the network
address space. IPv6 is a robust and expandable protocol that meets the need for increased
physical address space. The switch supports IPv6 host management, as defined in RFCs 2460,
2461, 2462, 2463, and 2465.
This chapter describes the basic configuration of IPv6 host management on the switch. IPv6 host
management allows you to assign an IPv6 address, and manage the switch via IPv6.
IPv6 Address Format
The IPv6 address is 128 bits (16 bytes) long and is represented as a sequence of eight 16-bit hex
values, separated by colons.
Each IPv6 address has two parts:
 Subnet prefix representing the network to which the interface is connected
 Local identifier, either derived from the MAC address or user-configured
The preferred format is as follows:
xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx
Example IPv6 address:
FEDC:BA98:7654:BA98:FEDC:1234:ABCD:5412
Some addresses can contain long sequences of zeros. A single contiguous sequence of zeros can be
compressed to :: (two colons). For example, consider the following IPv6 address:
FE80:0:0:0:2AA:FF:FA:4CA2
The address can be compressed as follows:
FE80::2AA:FF:FA:4CA2