IPv6 - Stateless autoconfig

Logical Topology:

R6------SW2

R6 is in vlan 6.
SW2 get its address for SVI 6 via stateless autoconfiguration.
R6 will be advertising the prefix for SW2 to use to build it's address.
R6 already has an IPv6 address configured: 2001:cc1e:1:6::6/64

Also, a good command to run here is "debug ipv6 nd".

Rack1R6#debug ipv6 nd
ICMP Neighbor Discovery events debugging is on

Rack1SW2#debug ipv6 nd
ICMP Neighbor Discovery events debugging is on

Before we do anything let's see what debugging gives us on R6:

Rack1R6#
*Mar 1 00:42:14.219: ICMPv6-ND: Sending RA to FF02::1 on Ethernet0/1
*Mar 1 00:42:14.219: ICMPv6-ND: MTU = 1500
*Mar 1 00:42:14.219: ICMPv6-ND: prefix = 2001:CC1E:1:6::/64 onlink autoconfig
*Mar 1 00:42:14.219: ICMPv6-ND: 2592000/604800 (valid/preferred)
Rack1R6#

We can see that R6 is already advertising it's prefix for hosts on this segment to use. Look at the output of the debug. We have

1) All nodes multicast address FF02::1, this is the destination of the RA advertisement
2) MTU of 1500
3) Prefix advertised by R6 2001:CC1E:1:6::/64
4) Valid and Preferred Lifetime 2592000/604800

All we need to do on SW2 is configure the SVI for autoconfiguration:

SW2#conf t
SW2(config)#int vlan 6
SW2(config-if)#ipv6 address ?
WORD General prefix name
X:X:X:X::X IPv6 link-local address
X:X:X:X::X/<0-128> IPv6 prefix
autoconfig Obtain address using autoconfiguration

SW2(config-if)#ipv6 address autoconfig

Notice that SW2 immediately sends an RS message asking for information about this segment:

00:19:39: ICMPv6-ND: Sending RS on Vlan6
00:19:39: ICMPv6-ND: Received RA from FE80::205:32FF:FE22:E442 on Vlan6
00:19:39: ICMPv6-ND: Sending NS for 2001:CC1E:1:6:21D:45FF:FEC0:F443 on Vlan6
00:19:39: ICMPv6-ND: Autoconfiguring 2001:CC1E:1:6:21D:45FF:FEC0:F443 on Vlan6
00:19:40: ICMPv6-ND: DAD: 2001:CC1E:1:6:21D:45FF:FEC0:F443 is unique.
00:19:40: ICMPv6-ND: Sending NA for 2001:CC1E:1:6:21D:45FF:FEC0:F443 on Vlan6
00:19:40: ICMPv6-ND: Address 2001:CC1E:1:6:21D:45FF:FEC0:F443/64 is up on Vlan6

It also receives the prefix, calcualtes its global unicast address and performs DAD. Now let's check the interface on SW2:

SW2#show ipv6 interface
Vlan6 is up, line protocol is up
IPv6 is enabled, link-local address is FE80::21D:45FF:FEC0:F443
Global unicast address(es):
2001:CC1E:1:6:21D:45FF:FEC0:F443, subnet is 2001:CC1E:1:6::/64 [PRE]
valid lifetime 2591864 preferred lifetime 604664
Joined group address(es):
FF02::1
FF02::2
FF02::1:FFC0:F443
MTU is 1500 bytes
ICMP error messages limited to one every 100 milliseconds
ICMP redirects are enabled
ND DAD is enabled, number of DAD attempts: 1
ND reachable time is 30000 milliseconds
ND advertised reachable time is 0 milliseconds
ND advertised retransmit interval is 0 milliseconds
ND router advertisements are sent every 200 seconds
ND router advertisements live for 1800 seconds
ND advertised default router preference is Medium
Hosts use stateless autoconfig for addresses.
Rack1SW2#

There are several adjustments we can make on the timers. Let's look at R6:

R6(config-if)#ipv6 nd ?
advertisement-interval Send an advertisement interval option in RA's
dad Duplicate Address Detection
managed-config-flag Hosts should use DHCP for address config
ns-interval Set advertised NS retransmission interval
other-config-flag Hosts should use DHCP for non-address config
prefix Configure IPv6 Routing Prefix Advertisement
ra-interval Set IPv6 Router Advertisement Interval
ra-lifetime Set IPv6 Router Advertisement Lifetime
reachable-time Set advertised reachability time
suppress-ra Suppress IPv6 Router Advertisements

Here we can set various parameters such as the advertisement interval (200 seconds default) and the RA lifetime.

More information on these options can be found in the addressing section non the IPv6 configuration guide on the DocCD:

Implementing IPv6 Addressing and Basic Connectivity