System Administration Guide: IP Services

Administering IPv6-Enabled Interfaces on Servers

When you plan for IPv6 on a server, you must make a few decisions as you enable IPv6 on the server's interfaces. Your decisions affect the strategy to use for configuring the interface IDs, also known as tokens, of an interface's IPv6 address.

ProcedureHow to Enable IPv6 on a Server's Interfaces

Before You Begin

The next procedure assumes the following:

If applicable, upgrade the application software to support IPv6. Note that many applications that run on the IPv4 protocol stack also successfully run on IPv6. For more information, refer to How to Prepare Network Services for IPv6 Support.

  1. On the server, assume the Primary Administrator role or become superuser.

    The Primary Administrator role includes the Primary Administrator profile. To create the role and assign the role to a user, see Chapter 2, Working With the Solaris Management Console (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

  2. Ensure that an IPv6 subnet prefix is configured on a router on the same link as the server.

    For more information, refer to Configuring an IPv6 Router.

  3. Use the appropriate strategy for the interface ID for the server's IPv6-enabled interfaces.

    By default, IPv6 address autoconfiguration uses the MAC address of an interface when creating the interface ID portion of the IPv6 address. If the IPv6 address of the interface is well known, swapping one interface for another interface can cause problems. The MAC address of the new interface will be different. During address autoconfiguration, a new interface ID is generated.

    • For an IPv6-enabled interface that you do not plan to replace, use the autoconfigured IPv6 address, as introduced in IPv6 Address Autoconfiguration.

    • For IPv6-enabled interfaces that must appear anonymous outside the local network, consider using a randomly generated token for the interface ID. For instructions and an example, refer to How to Configure a Temporary Address.

    • For IPv6-enabled interfaces that you plan to swap on a regular basis, create tokens for the interface IDs. For instructions and an example, refer to How to Configure a User-Specified IPv6 Token.