A Practical Hands-On Introduction to IPv6
1-Day Instructor Led Hands On Lab Class
Available in either Web Based delivery or On-Site Delivery
Minimum 8 students – Maximum 16 students
Course Description
IPv6 is an operational part of today’s networks, yet many networking professionals still need a clear, practical understanding of how IPv6 differs from IPv4 and how it actually works.
IPv6 in a Day is a fast-paced, one-day, hands-on course designed to build that understanding without overwhelming students with unnecessary detail.
Using CellStream’s “follow me” learning approach, students learn the fundamentals of IPv6 addressing, host operation, Neighbor Discovery, automatic address configuration, and basic IPv6 routing. Instructor demonstrations and technical discussions are reinforced with hands-on exercises using Cisco routers and Cisco IOS.
Packet captures are also used throughout the course to help students see IPv6 protocols operating on the network—not simply read about them.
The goal is straightforward: Give students a solid working understanding of IPv6 in one day.
Students will answer practical questions such as:
- What is IPv6 and why is it important?
- How is IPv6 different from IPv4?
- What does an IPv6 address mean?
- What are Link-Local and Global IPv6 addresses?
- How does an IPv6 device discover neighboring devices and routers?
- How does a device automatically obtain IPv6 addressing?
- What roles do SLAAC and DHCPv6 play?
- Why is ICMPv6 so important?
- How is IPv6 routed?
- How can I verify and troubleshoot basic IPv6 connectivity?
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Explain the fundamental purpose and operation of IPv6.
- Identify important differences between IPv4 and IPv6.
- Read and interpret IPv6 addresses and prefixes.
- Recognize common IPv6 address types.
- Explain the importance of Link-Local addressing.
- Understand the role of IPv6 multicast and Anycast.
- Explain the purpose of ICMPv6.
- Understand IPv6 Neighbor Discovery.
- Explain Router Solicitation and Router Advertisement operation.
- Understand Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC).
- Explain the basic role of DHCPv6.
- Configure and verify basic IPv6 connectivity.
- Understand basic IPv6 routing.
- Configure and verify basic OSPFv3 routing.
- Use common tools and packet captures to examine basic IPv6 operation.
This course focuses on practical IPv6 fundamentals rather than attempting to cover every IPv6 technology in a single day.
Audience
This course is designed for anyone who needs a practical working understanding of IPv6 but does not require an extensive multi-day treatment of the protocol.
Ideal participants include:
- Network Engineers
- Network Administrators
- Broadband and Service Provider Technicians
- Network Operations personnel
- Customer Support Engineers
- Network Design Engineers
- Network Management personnel
- Test Engineers
- Technical Support personnel
- Technical Sales Engineers
- Technical Marketing personnel
- Certification candidates
- Anyone who needs to understand how IPv6 operates in today’s networks
The course is particularly useful for networking professionals who understand IPv4 but need to become comfortable recognizing, configuring, and troubleshooting basic IPv6 operation.
Course Prerequisites
Students should have a basic understanding of IP networking.
Familiarity with IPv4 addressing, Ethernet, routing, and basic router operation is helpful, but no prior IPv6 knowledge is required.
Students participating remotely should have a computer capable of connecting to the provided lab environment using the required remote-access software.
Course Materials
Students receive:
- Course Student Guide
- Access to the IPv6 lab environment
- IPv6 configuration exercises
- Packet captures used during the course
Course Outline
Section 1: IPv6 Fundamentals and Addressing
Students begin by developing a practical understanding of what IPv6 is and how it differs from IPv4.
Topics include:
- IPv4 versus IPv6
- IPv6 addressing
- 128-bit addresses
- Hexadecimal notation
- Address compression
- Prefix notation
- Global Unicast addresses
- Link-Local addresses
- Loopback and other common IPv6 addresses
- IPv6 multicast
- IPv6 Anycast
- Basic IPv6 header concepts
Hands-On Exercise: Examining IPv6 Addressing
Students examine IPv6 addressing on hosts and routers and verify basic IPv6 operation.
Section 2: ICMPv6 and Neighbor Discovery
Students learn how IPv6 devices discover other systems and routers on the local network.
Topics include:
- ICMPv6
- Neighbor Discovery
- Neighbor Solicitation
- Neighbor Advertisement
- Router Solicitation
- Router Advertisement
- Duplicate Address Detection
- Basic neighbor reachability
Students use packet captures to observe these exchanges and connect the protocol messages to what the devices are actually doing.
Hands-On Exercise: IPv6 Neighbor Discovery
Section 3: IPv6 Automatic Address Configuration
Students examine one of the most important differences between IPv4 and IPv6: how an IPv6 host can automatically configure itself.
Topics include:
- Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
- Router Advertisements
- Prefix information
- Link-Local address creation
- Global address creation
- Default-router discovery
- SLAAC
- DHCPv6
- Basic SLAAC versus DHCPv6 operation
Hands-On Exercise: IPv6 Autoconfiguration
Students observe and verify how an IPv6 host obtains its addressing and default-router information.
Section 4: DHCPv6
Students build on the autoconfiguration discussion by examining the role of DHCPv6.
Topics include:
- Why DHCPv6 is used
- Stateful and stateless DHCPv6 concepts
- DHCPv6 message exchange
- DHCPv6 configuration
- Relationship between Router Advertisements, SLAAC, and DHCPv6
Hands-On Exercise: DHCPv6
Section 5: Basic IPv6 Routing
Students move from host and local-link operation into routed IPv6 connectivity.
Topics include:
- IPv6 forwarding
- Connected IPv6 routes
- Static IPv6 routes
- Default routes
- Reading the IPv6 routing table
- IPv6 next-hop concepts
- Verifying routed IPv6 connectivity
Hands-On Exercise: Building a Routed IPv6 Network
Section 6: IPv6 Routing with OSPFv3
Students are introduced to dynamic IPv6 routing using OSPFv3.
Topics include:
- Purpose of OSPFv3
- Basic OSPFv3 operation
- Neighbor relationships
- IPv6 route advertisement
- Viewing the IPv6 routing table
- Basic OSPFv3 verification
Hands-On Exercise: IPv6 Routing with OSPFv3
The goal is not to make students OSPFv3 experts in one day, but to demonstrate how IPv6 is dynamically routed and how that operation can be verified.
Section 7: IPv6 Beyond the Local Network
The course concludes by placing the day’s exercises into a larger networking context.
Topics include:
- IPv6 across routed networks
- IPv4 and IPv6 coexistence
- Dual-stack networks
- IPv6 on the Internet
- Introduction to BGP support for IPv6
- Where students should continue their IPv6 studies
This section is intended as an introduction and discussion rather than an extensive BGP configuration exercise.
Putting It All Together
By the end of the day, students will have followed IPv6 through a logical progression:
Addressing → Neighbor Discovery → Autoconfiguration → DHCPv6 → Routing → Verification
Students will have configured IPv6, observed its protocols in packet captures, and verified IPv6 connectivity using actual networking equipment.
The objective of IPv6 in a Day is not to make someone an IPv6 expert in eight hours.
It is to give them the practical foundation and confidence needed to begin working with IPv6—and a clear understanding of what they need to learn next.
Course Availability:
Contact us for schedule dates and times.
View the course calendar and browse for our schedule.
Course Description, Content, Outline, and Instructional Design are Copyright ©CellStream, Inc.