Introducing IPv6 Tokenised Interface Identifiers into the Linux Kernel

Abstract

IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC) enables network administrators to deploy devices in a network and have those devices automatically generate global addresses without any administrative intervention, and without the need for any stateful configuration service such as DHCPv6. However, certain services --- such as HTTP, SMTP and IMAP --- may better benefit from having "well known" identifiers that do not depend on the physical hardware address of the server's network interface card. Tokenised addresses offer facility for administrators to specify the bottom 64 bits of an IPv6 address for a node whilst allowing the top 64 bits (the network prefix) to be automatically configured from router advertisements. This report documents the approach taken and experience gained from introducing tokenised interface identifiers into the Linux 2.6.11 kernel, as shipped with Redhat Fedora Core 4. This proof of concept work demonstrates the relative ease of introducing this useful utility for network node deployment, and further motivates wider deployment of the semi-automatic configuration approach