3. Background

3. Background

   The IPv6 Specification provides the base architecture and design of IPv6. Related work in IPv6 that would best serve an implementor to study includes the IPv6 Specification [3], the IPv6 Addressing Architecture [5], IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration [17], IPv6 Neighbor Discovery Processing [13], and Dynamic Updates to DNS [22]. These specifications enable DHCP to build upon the IPv6 work to provide both robust stateful autoconfiguration and autoregistration of DNS Host Names.

   The IPv6 Addressing Architecture specification [5] defines the address scope that can be used in an IPv6 implementation, and the various configuration architecture guidelines for network designers of the IPv6 address space. Two advantages of IPv6 are that support for multicast is required and nodes can create link-local addresses during initialization. The availability of these features means that a client can use its link-local address and a well-known multicast address to discover and communicate with DHCP servers or relay agents on its link.

   IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration [17] specifies procedures by which a node may autoconfigure addresses based on router advertisements [13], and the use of a valid lifetime to support renumbering of addresses on the Internet. In addition, the protocol interaction by which a node begins stateless or stateful autoconfiguration is specified. DHCP is one vehicle to perform stateful autoconfiguration. Compatibility with stateless address autoconfiguration is a design requirement of DHCP.

   IPv6 Neighbor Discovery [13] is the node discovery protocol in IPv6 which replaces and enhances functions of ARP [14]. To understand IPv6 and stateless address autoconfiguration, it is strongly recommended that implementors understand IPv6 Neighbor Discovery.

   Dynamic Updates to DNS [22] is a specification that supports the dynamic update of DNS records for both IPv4 and IPv6. DHCP can use the dynamic updates to DNS to integrate addresses and name space to not only support autoconfiguration, but also autoregistration in IPv6.