Radvd Explained

radvd
Developer:	Reuben Hawkins, Robin Johnson
Latest Release Version:	2.19
Latest Preview Version:	2.20-rc1
Programming Language:	C
Platform:	Linux and BSD
Language:	English
License:	BSD-style vanity^[1]
Website:	radvd

The Router Advertisement Daemon (radvd) is an open-source software product that implements link-local advertisements of IPv6 router addresses and IPv6 routing prefixes using the Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) as specified in .^[2]

Daemon

The Router Advertisement Daemon is used by system administrators in stateless autoconfiguration(.^[3]) methods of network hosts on Internet Protocol version 6 networks.

When IPv6 hosts configure their network interface controllers, they multicast router solicitation (RS) requests onto the network to discover available routers. Radvd answers requests with router advertisement (RA) messages. In addition, radvd periodically multicasts RA packets to the attached link to update network hosts. The router advertisement messages contain the routing prefix used on the link, the link maximum transmission unit (MTU), and the address of the responsible default router.

Radvd also supports the recursive DNS server (RDNSS) and DNS search list (DNSSL) options for NDP published in .^[4]

See also

• Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
• Domain Name System (DNS)
• Neighbor Discovery Protocol
• Netsh on Microsoft Windows covers similar functionality

External links

• Radvd web site
• Source code

Notes and References

1. http://lists.litech.org/pipermail/radvd-devel-l/2006-July/000229.html Pekka Savola on radvd-devel-l mailing list
2. , Neighbor Discovery for IP Version 6 (IPv6), T. Narten, E. Nordmark, W. Simpson (December 1998)
3. , IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration, S, Thomson, T. Narten, T. Jinmei (September 2007)
4. , IPv6 Router Advertisement Options for DNS Configuration, J. Jeong (Ed.), S. Park, L. Beloeil, S. Madanapalli (November 2010)