Stateless Autoconfiguration Requirements

IPv6 defines both a stateful and stateless address autoconfiguration mechanism. Stateless autoconfiguration requires no manual configuration of hosts, minimal (if any) configuration of routers, and no additional servers. The stateless mechanism allows a host to generate its own addresses using a combination of locally available information and information advertised by routers. Routers advertise prefixes that identify the subnet(s) associated with a link, while hosts generate an interface identifier that uniquely identifies an interface on a subnet. An address is formed by combining the two. In the absence of routers, a host can generate only link-local addresses. However, link-local addresses are only sufficient for allowing communication among nodes attached to the same link.