Installing and Configuring DHCPv6 2

Overview

Chapter 12

Due to an explosive growth in networks, assigning and maintaining new

IP addresses have presented a challenging task for administrators. At its

current rate of development, the present system, which can support 4

billion addresses, might run out of space in a few years. Researchers

claim that switchover to IPv6, which has a huge address space, is the

optimal solution to the overcrowded system.

To overcome the paucity of IP addresses, the Dynamic Host

Conﬁguration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6) is used to automatically

allocate reusable IPv6 addresses and to reduce the cost of managing IPv6

nodes in environments where administrators need more control over the

allocation of IPv6 addresses.

DHCPv6 is an extension of the Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP) that deﬁnes

a protocol for passing conﬁguration information to hosts on a network.

This section discusses the following topics:

• “DHCPv6 Versus DHCPv4” on page 5

• “DHCPv6 2.001 Overview” on page 4

• “DHCPv6 2.001 Features” on page 5

• “DHCPv6 2.001 Components” on page 9

• “Autoconﬁguration” on page 10

• “Ports” on page 11

• “Multicast Addresses” on page 12

• “How DHCPv6 2.001 Works” on page 13

• “DHCPv6 2.001 Files” on page 17