RFC 7608 · BEST CURRENT PRACTICE · 2015

IPv6 Prefix Length Recommendation for Forwarding

Overview

RFC 7608, “IPv6 Prefix Length Recommendation for Forwarding”, is a Best Current Practice document published in July 2015 by M. Boucadair, A. Petrescu, F. Baker. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.

Abstract

IPv6 prefix length, as in IPv4, is a parameter conveyed and used in IPv6 routing and forwarding processes in accordance with the Classless Inter-domain Routing (CIDR) architecture. The length of an IPv6 prefix may be any number from zero to 128, although subnets using stateless address autoconfiguration (SLAAC) for address allocation conventionally use a /64 prefix. Hardware and software implementations of routing and forwarding should therefore impose no rules on prefix length, but implement longest-match-first on prefixes of any valid length.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Best Current Practice” means

Documents the IETF community's recommended operational or procedural practice rather than a protocol specification.

Read this RFC

The canonical text of RFC 7608 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in TXT,HTML.

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