Configuring Neighbor Discovery

The Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) is a messaging protocol that was created as part of IPv6 to complete a number of the tasks that ICMP and ARP accomplish in IPv4. Just like ARP, Neighbor Discovery builds a cache of dynamic entries, and the administrator can configure static Neighbor Discovery entries. The following table shows the IPv6 neighbor messages and functions that are analogous to the traditional IPv4 neighbor messages.

 

Table 7. IPv6 neighbor messages and functions

IPv4 Neighbor message	IPv6 Neighbor message
ARP request message	Neighbor solicitation message
ARP relay message	Neighbor advertisement message
ARP cache	Neighbor cache
Gratuitous ARP	Duplicate address detection
Router solicitation message (optional)	Router solicitation (required)
Router advertisement message (optional)	Router advertisement (required)
Redirect Message	Redirect Message

NDP objects

Use the NDP Object Search tool to find existing NDP objects. The search results display in the NDP Objects table. Each entry details the IP Address, MAC Address, and Interface of the NDP object. From this table you can add, edit, or delete NDP objects by click the ADD New NDP object or Delete NDP Object(s) links, or clicking Configure for an existing object.

 

NDP Cache

Request an NDP cache list by clicking the Request NDP Cache List from Firewall link located in the “Request NDP Cache List” section. The requested list displays in the NDP Cache Objects table, where information about the IP Address, Type, MAC Address, Interface, Timeout, and Flush is shown. To search for particular NDP cache lists, use the NDP Cache Search tool. The filtered results display in the NDP Cache Objects table. To flush the NDP cache, click the Flush NDP Cache link.