IPv6 Neighbor Discovery, Address Configuration, and IPv6 Routing Table

This chapter describes the IPv6 Neighbor Discovery protocol [ RFC4861 ] , a key protocol within the IPv6 suite of protocols. The IPv6 Neighbor Discovery protocol supports several functions that replace important IPv4 protocols such as Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), ICMPv4 Router Discovery, and ICMPv4 Redirect. It also provides many improvements over these IPv4 protocols. Specifically, the IPv6 Neighbor Discovery protocol offers various capabilities that allow IPv6 nodes on the same network segment (IP subnet or Virtual LAN (VLAN)) to advertise their presence to neighboring nodes and to learn about the presence of other active neighbors, including attached routers.