HP 6125XLG R2306-HP 6125XLG Blade Switch Layer 3 - IP Services Configuration G - Page 126

• Stateful address autoconfiguration enables a host to acquire an IPv6 address and other configuration information from a server (for example, a DHCPv6 server). For more information about DHCPv6 server, see "Configuring the DHCPv6 server." • Stateless address autoconfiguration enables a host to automatically generate an IPv6 address and other configuration information by using its link-layer address and the prefix information advertised by a router. To communicate with other hosts on the same link, a host automatically generates a link-local address based on its link-layer address and the link-local address prefix (FE80::/10). Built-in security IPv6 defines extension headers to support IPsec. IPsec provides end-to-end security and enhances interoperability among different IPv6 applications. QoS support The Flow Label field in the IPv6 header allows the device to label the packets of a specific flow for special handling. Enhanced neighbor discovery mechanism The IPv6 neighbor discovery protocol uses a group of ICMPv6 messages to manage information exchange among neighboring nodes on the same link. The group of ICMPv6 messages replaces ARP messages, ICMPv4 Router Discovery messages, and ICMPv4 Redirect messages and provides a series of other functions. Flexible extension headers IPv6 eliminates the Options field in the header and introduces optional extension headers to provide scalability and improve efficiency. The Options field in the IPv4 packet header contains up to 40 bytes, whereas the IPv6 extension headers are restricted to the maximum size of IPv6 packets. IPv6 addresses IPv6 address formats An IPv6 address is represented as a set of 16-bit hexadecimals separated by colons (:). An IPv6 address is divided into eight groups, and each 16-bit group is represented by four hexadecimal numbers, for example, 2001:0000:130F:0000:0000:09C0:876A:130B. To simplify the representation of IPv6 addresses, you can handle zeros in IPv6 addresses by using the following methods: • The leading zeros in each group can be removed. For example, the above address can be represented in a shorter format as 2001:0:130F:0:0:9C0:876A:130B. • If an IPv6 address contains two or more consecutive groups of zeros, they can be replaced by a double colon (::). For example, the above address can be represented in the shortest format as 2001:0:130F::9C0:876A:130B. IMPORTANT: A double colon can appear once or not at all in an IPv6 address. This limit allows the device to determine how many zeros the double colon represents and correctly convert it to zeros to restore a 128-bit IPv6 address. 118