IPv6 Interface Configuration File Entry

Since autoconfiguration of interfaces in IPv6 allows a node to compute its own link-local address based on its link-layer address, the IPv6 interface configuration file might not have an entry. In this case the startup scripts configure an interface. The node then learns of other addresses and prefixes through the neighbor discovery daemon, in.ndpd. If it is required for an interface to have static addresses (which is less common in IPv6), you can still add them using the command interface of the ifconfig utility. Consequently, the address or hostname is stored in /etc/hostname6.interface (or /etc/hostname.interface) and the content is passed to ifconfig when configuring an interface.

In this case, the file contains only one entry: the host name or IP address associated with the network interface. For example, suppose smc0 is the primary network interface for a machine called ahaggar. Its /etc/hostname6.* file would have the name /etc/hostname6.smc0 and the file would contain the entry ahaggar.

The networking start-up script examines the number of interfaces and the existence of the /etc/inet/ndpd.conf file to start routing daemons and packet forwarding (see "How to Configure a Solaris IPv6 Router").