Router Advertisement

On multicast-capable links and point-to-point links, each router periodically multicasts a router advertisement packet that announces its availability. A host receives router advertisements from all routers, building a list of default routers. Routers generate router advertisements frequently enough that hosts learn of their presence within a few minutes. However, routers do not advertise frequently enough to rely on an absence of advertisements to detect router failure. A separate detection algorithm that determines neighbor unreachability provides failure detection.