System Administration Guide: IP Services

Inbound Load Balancing

Nodes with replicated interfaces might need to load balance the reception of incoming packets across multiple network interfaces on the same link. Such nodes have multiple link-local addresses assigned to the same interface. For example, a single network driver can represent multiple network interface cards as a single logical interface that has multiple link-local addresses.

Load balancing is handled by allowing routers to omit the source link-local address from router advertisement packets. Consequently, neighbors must use neighbor solicitation messages to learn link-local addresses of routers. Returned neighbor advertisement messages can then contain link-local addresses that differ, depending on which issued the solicitation.