Ipv6 Path Mtu Discovery - HP 830 Series Configuration Manual

3. Host A learns that the IPv6 address is being used by Host B after receiving the NA message from
Host B. If Host A does not get any NA message, Host A decides that the IPv6 address is not in use,
and uses this address.
Router/prefix discovery and address autoconfiguration
Router/prefix discovery enables a node to locate the neighboring routers, and to learn from the received
RA message configuration parameters such as the prefix of the network where the node is located.
Stateless address autoconfiguration enables a node to generate an IPv6 address automatically
according to the information obtained through router/prefix discovery.
Router/prefix discovery is implemented through RS and RA messages as follows:
1. At startup, a node sends an RS message to request the address prefix and other configuration
information for autoconfiguration.
2. A router returns an RA message containing information such as Prefix Information options. (The
router also sends an RA message periodically.)
3. The node automatically generates an IPv6 address and other configuration information according
to the address prefix and other configuration parameters in the RA message.
In addition to an address prefix, the Prefix Information option also contains the preferred lifetime and
valid lifetime of the address prefix. Nodes update the preferred lifetime and valid lifetime accordingly
through periodic RA messages.
An automatically generated address is applicable within the valid lifetime. It is removed when the valid
lifetime expires.
Redirection
A newly started host may contain only a default route to the gateway in its routing table. When certain
conditions are satisfied, the gateway sends an ICMPv6 Redirect message to the source host, so the host
can select a better next hop to forward packets (similar to the ICMP redirection function in IPv4).
The gateway sends an ICMPv6 Redirect message when the following conditions are satisfied:
The receiving interface is the forwarding interface.
•
The selected route itself is not created or modified by an ICMPv6 Redirect message.
•
The selected route is not the default route.
•

IPv6 path MTU discovery

The links that a packet passes from a source to a destination may have different MTUs. In IPv6, when the
packet size exceeds the path MTU of a link, the packet is fragmented at the source end of the link to
reduce the processing pressure on intermediate devices and to use network resources effectively.
The path MTU discovery mechanism is designed to find the minimum MTU of all links in the path
between a source and a destination.
destination host.
Figure 51 shows how a source host discovers the path MTU to a
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