This chapter provides an overview of Neighbor Discovery (ND) configuration.

The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) translates network layer addresses into link-layer addresses. ARP converts a an IPv4 address to an Ethernet address (MAC address).

In Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) networks, the functionality of ARP is provided by the Neighbor Discovery (ND) protocol. Neighbor Discovery operates at the link layer and is responsible for auto configuration of nodes, discovery of other nodes on the link, determining the link layer addresses of other nodes, duplicate address detection, finding available routers and Domain Name System (DNS) servers, address prefix discovery, and maintaining reachability information about the paths to other active neighbor nodes.