Hierarchical Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6) for stateless configuration parameters allows a stateless or stateful DHCPv6 client to export configuration parameters (DHCPv6 options) to a local DHCPv6 server pool. The local DHCPv6 server can then provide the imported configuration parameters to other DHCPv6 clients.

The figure below shows a typical broadband deployment.

Figure 1. Broadband Topology

The customer premises edge (CPE) interface toward the provider edge (PE) can be a stateless or stateful DHCPv6 client. In either case, the ISP-side DHCPv6 server might provide configuration parameters such as Domain Name System (DNS) server addresses, domain names, and Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) servers to the DHCP client on the CPE. Such information can be specific to ISPs.

In addition to being a DHCPv6 client (for example, toward the ISP), the CPE can act as a DHCPv6 server to the home network. For example, neighbor discovery followed by a stateless or stateful DHCPv6 client can occur on the link between the CPE and the home devices. In some cases, the information to be provided to the home network is the same as that obtained from the ISP-side DHCPv6 server. Because this information can be dynamically changed, it cannot be hard-configured in the CPE’s configuration. Therefore, the DHCPv6 component on the CPE allows automatic importing of configuration parameters from the DHCPv6 client to the DHCPv6 server pool.

DHCPv6 supports the options for IPv6 on the server described in the following sections.

Information Refresh Server Option

The DHCPv6 information refresh server option can specify a maximum limit for the length of time a client should wait before refreshing the information retrieved from DHCPv6. This option is used with stateless DHCPv6 because there are no addresses or other entities with lifetimes that can tell the client when to contact the DHCPv6 server to refresh its configuration.

NIS- and NIS+-Related Server Options

Users can configure the network information service (NIS) or NIS plus (NIS+) address or domain name of a DHCPv6 server using NIS- and NIS+-related options, and then import that information to the DHCPv6 client.

SIP Server Options

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) server options contain either a list of domain names or a list of IPv6 addresses that can be mapped to one or more SIP outbound proxy servers. One option carries a list of domain names, and the other option carries a list of 128-bit IPv6 addresses.

SIP is an application-layer control protocol that can establish, modify, and terminate multimedia sessions or calls. A SIP system has several logical components: user agents, proxy servers, redirect servers, and registrars. User agents can contain SIP clients; proxy servers always contain SIP clients.

SNTP Server Option

The Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) server option provides a list of one or more IPv6 addresses of SNTP servers available to the client for synchronization. Clients use these SNTP servers to synchronize their system time to that of the standard time servers. The DHCPv6 server can list the SNTP servers in decreasing order of preference, but clients treat the list of SNTP servers as an ordered list.

The following example shows how to use the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6) function to configure clients with information about the name lookup system. The server is configured with a DHCP pool, which contains the name lookup information that is to be passed to clients. It does not need to contain a prefix pool. This DHCP pool is attached to the access link to customers (Ethernet 0/0) when you enter the ipv6 dhcp server command. The access link also has the ipv6 nd other-config-flag command enabled. Router advertisement (RA) messages sent from this interface inform clients that they should use DHCPv6 for “other” (for example, nonaddress) configuration information.

ipv6 dhcp pool dhcp-pool
 dns-server 2001:DB8:A:B::1
 dns-server 2001:DB8:3000:3000::42
 domain-name example.com
!
interface Ethernet 0/0
 description Access link down to customers
 ipv6 address 2001:DB8:1234:42::1/64
 ipv6 nd other-config-flag
 ipv6 dhcp server dhcp-pool

The client has no obvious DHCPv6 configuration. However, the ipv6 address autoconfig command on the uplink to the service provider (Ethernet 0/0) causes the following two events:

• Addresses are autoconfigured on the interface, based on prefixes in RA messages received from the server.

• If received RA messages have the “other configuration” flag set, the interface attempts to acquire the other (for example, nonaddress) configuration from any DHCPv6 servers.