Building

IPAM Requirements in IPv6 Networks

I recently had a discussion with some practitioners about requirements to IP Address Management (IPAM) solutions which are specific for IPv6 networks. We came up with the following:

Mandatory: Track all dynamic IPv6 assignments (SLAAC + PrivExtensions, DHCP etc.), by polling neighbor caches from network devices. Support SNMPv3 for this task.
Optional (read: nice-to-have): support other methods than SNMP to gather this info (e.g. SSH-ing into devices and execution of appropriate “show” commands).

Mandatory: Display connected switch port (incl. device name or CDP-type info) for all addresses.

Mandatory: Be able to sort addresses according to their categories, e.g. “show all SLAAC systems vs. all systems with DHCPv6 addresses”.
Optional: Be able to easily identify systems which have several types _simultaneously_ (e.g. “static + SLAAC address”, “SLAAC + DHCP managed address”).

Mandatory: Full support for RFC 5952 notation in all UIs (both entry and display of addresses).
Optional: be able to display addresses in other formats in reports or exported files (e.g. CSV files).

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Hope that some of you might find this useful when reflecting on the topic; have a great day everybody

Enno

Comments

  1. Hi Enno,

    just have found your website, because I’m a member of the IPv6 hackers mailing list.

    That’s a very interesting article. Please visit my company’s website. Maybe we can help you with that.

    Cheers,
    Andreas

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