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Does 10.6.8 support DHCPv6?

I saw in the release notes for 10.6.8 that IPv6 support was "improved." Unfortunately, I don't see any specifics as to what these improvements were. Has DHCPv6 support been added?


Anyone who uses OS X with IPv6 on a Cisco router will greatly appreciate not having to manually add their DNS IP address manually.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jun 28, 2011 11:57 AM

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12 replies

Jun 28, 2011 12:11 PM in response to Kappy

Kappy, thanks for your prompt response. I am a network engineer at an ISP, we've had IPv6 and DHCPv6 implemented in our routers for months. I've been trying to get my 10.6.8 MacBook Pro to participate in DHCPv6 with no luck. According to this topic on 10.6.7, DHCPv6 is not supported. Are you certain that 10.6.8 supports DHCPv6? If so, can you cite your source?

Jun 28, 2011 12:12 PM in response to bobby.is.rad

Anyone who uses OS X with IPv6 on a Cisco router will greatly appreciate not having to manually add their DNS IP address manually.

Which model Cisco router? The overall impression I'm getting from various reports is that Cisco is only going to implement IPv6 support in new routers going forward and only a few existing routers of recent vintage will get updates to support IPv6. (This was Cisco's statement from around Q4 of 2010.) IOW, if your router is more than a year old, it is very possible that you may need a new router to fully work with IPv6.

Jun 28, 2011 12:54 PM in response to Kappy

I too have setup tunnel broker on my AEBS at my house. How do you know that it used DHCPv6 when giving your computer an address? You will be assigned an IPv6 address and a default router with just stateless autoconfiguration which is built into IPv6. Stateless autoconfiguration is not the same as DHCPv6. DHCPv6 can be used in conjunction with SLAAC where DHCPv6 will assign other optional parameters like DNS IP address, domain-name, etc.


I'll get a packet capture of the whole SLAAC process when I get home to know for sure.

Jun 28, 2011 1:30 PM in response to Kappy

Kappy I do appreciate you taking the time to respond to my question, and I don't mean to sound rude, but that IPv6 test doesn't have anything to do with DHCPv6. Everything between your AEBS and your Mac was likely configured using stateless address autoconfiguation (SLAAC,) which is not DHCPv6.


Here's an explanation of the difference between DHCPv6 and SLAAC from the DHCPv6 wikipedia entry:


DHCPv6 is the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6. Although IPv6's stateless address autoconfiguration can also be used to acquire IPv6 access, DHCPv6 may be a more suitable solution to assign addresses, nameservers and other configuration information as being done today with DHCP for IPv4. A notable case is Domain Name System servers used on a network, albeit other mechanisms exist for this in the Neighbor Discovery Protocol.[1]. At the time of writing, Microsoft Windows does for example only support the method used with DHCPv6 and not RDNSS with stateless address autoconfiguration.



The only reason I ask this question now is because IPv6 enhancements were reported in 10.6.8. From what I have seen in the packet captures I've done here, the "managed config flag" bit is set in the router advertisements, which means my MacBook should be using DHCPv6 for additional configuration, however it is not.


So basically all signs point to 10.6.8 still not supporting DHCPv6, but I was hoping that had changed with 10.6.8's IPv6 "improvements."

Does 10.6.8 support DHCPv6?

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