Building Practical Layer 2 Ethernet and IPv6 Networking Skills
2-Day Instructor-Led Hands-On Lab Course
Available in Web-Based or On-Site delivery.
Minimum 10 students – Maximum 16 students
Course Description
Modern IP networking depends on two fundamental technologies: Ethernet at Layer 2 and Internet Protocol at Layer 3.
This two-day hands-on course combines the essential operation of Ethernet with the fundamental operation of IPv6, helping students understand not only each technology individually, but how they work together.
The course begins with Ethernet frames, MAC addressing, switching, VLANs, and 802.1Q trunking. Students then build on that Layer 2 foundation to understand IPv6 addressing, ICMPv6, Neighbor Discovery, Router Advertisements, automatic address configuration, and basic IPv6 routing.
The emphasis throughout the course is practical.
Students configure network devices, examine operating tables, generate traffic, and analyze packet captures to connect protocol theory with actual network behavior.
This course does not attempt to cover every Ethernet feature or every IPv6 technology in two days.
Instead, it focuses on the essential skills needed to understand how an Ethernet-based network carries and supports IPv6 communications.
What Will You Learn?
Students answer practical questions including:
- What information is carried in an Ethernet frame?
- How do Ethernet switches learn MAC addresses?
- How are Ethernet broadcasts and multicasts handled?
- Why are VLANs used?
- How does 802.1Q VLAN tagging work?
- How does IPv6 differ from IPv4?
- How are IPv6 addresses structured?
- What are Link-Local and Global Unicast IPv6 addresses?
- Why does IPv6 rely so heavily on multicast?
- How does IPv6 replace IPv4 ARP functionality?
- How does a host discover an IPv6 router?
- How does an IPv6 device configure itself automatically?
- What are the roles of SLAAC and DHCPv6?
- How does IPv6 traffic move between Ethernet LANs?
- How can basic Ethernet and IPv6 problems be identified and isolated?
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Explain the fundamental operation of Ethernet.
- Identify the major fields of an Ethernet frame.
- Explain Ethernet MAC addressing.
- Describe how Ethernet switches learn and forward traffic.
- Explain broadcast and multicast Ethernet operation.
- Configure and verify basic Ethernet VLANs.
- Explain 802.1Q VLAN tagging and trunking.
- Understand the basic purpose of Spanning Tree Protocol.
- Explain the fundamental architecture of IPv6.
- Read and interpret IPv6 addresses and prefixes.
- Identify important IPv6 address types.
- Explain the importance of IPv6 Link-Local addresses.
- Understand the relationship between IPv6 multicast and Ethernet multicast.
- Explain ICMPv6 and Neighbor Discovery.
- Compare IPv4 ARP with IPv6 Neighbor Discovery.
- Explain Router Solicitation and Router Advertisement.
- Understand Stateless Address Autoconfiguration.
- Explain the basic role of DHCPv6.
- Configure and verify IPv6 interfaces.
- Configure and verify basic IPv6 routing.
- Understand the fundamentals of OSPFv3.
- Use packet captures and network-device information to verify Ethernet and IPv6 operation.
- Apply a structured approach to basic Ethernet and IPv6 troubleshooting.
Audience
This course is designed for networking professionals who need a practical understanding of both Ethernet and IPv6.
Ideal participants include:
- Network Engineers
- Broadband and Service Provider Technicians
- Network Administrators
- Network Operations personnel
- Customer Support Engineers
- Network Design personnel
- Test Engineers
- Network Management personnel
- Technical Support personnel
- Technical Sales Engineers
- Technical Marketing personnel
- Certification candidates
The course is particularly useful for personnel who work with switched Ethernet networks and need to understand how IPv6 operates across those networks.
Course Prerequisites
Students should have a basic understanding of computer networking and TCP/IP concepts.
Familiarity with IPv4 addressing is helpful.
No previous IPv6 experience is required.
Because this is a hands-on course, students should have a computer capable of connecting to the provided lab environment and running the software required for the exercises.
Course Materials
Students receive:
- Course Student Guide
- Access to the network lab environment
- Ethernet and IPv6 configuration exercises
- Packet captures used during the course
- Troubleshooting exercises
Course Outline
Day 1 – Ethernet Foundations and the Introduction to IPv6
Section 1: Building the Networking Foundation
The course begins by establishing how Ethernet and IP fit together.
Topics include:
- Network protocol layering
- Ethernet at Layer 2
- IP at Layer 3
- Ethernet LAN operation
- Encapsulation
- Hosts, switches, and routers
- Following a packet through the protocol stack
The emphasis is on understanding the relationship between the layers rather than memorizing protocol models.
Section 2: Ethernet Frames and MAC Addressing
Students examine how devices communicate on an Ethernet LAN.
Topics include:
- Ethernet frame structure
- Source and destination MAC addresses
- EtherType
- Ethernet payload
- Frame Check Sequence
- Unicast
- Broadcast
- Multicast
- MAC address structure
Hands-On Exercise: Examining Ethernet Frames
Students generate traffic and use packet captures to identify Ethernet frame fields and MAC addresses.
Section 3: Ethernet Switching
Students examine how Ethernet switches make forwarding decisions.
Topics include:
- Ethernet switch operation
- MAC address learning
- MAC address tables
- Unknown unicast traffic
- Broadcast forwarding
- Multicast traffic
- Frame forwarding and filtering
- Basic switching troubleshooting
Lab: Ethernet Switching and MAC Address Learning
Students generate traffic, examine switch MAC address tables, and correlate switch behavior with packet captures.
Section 4: VLANs and 802.1Q
Students learn how switched networks are logically segmented.
Topics include:
- Why VLANs are used
- VLAN membership
- Access ports
- Trunk ports
- IEEE 802.1Q tagging
- VLAN IDs
- Tagged and untagged frames
- Traffic between VLANs
- Basic VLAN troubleshooting
Lab: VLANs and 802.1Q Trunking
Students configure VLANs and trunk links and verify Ethernet connectivity.
Packet captures are used to examine 802.1Q-tagged Ethernet frames.
Section 5: Spanning Tree Fundamentals
Students receive the essential knowledge needed to understand why switched Ethernet networks require loop prevention.
Topics include:
- Layer 2 loops
- Broadcast storms
- Purpose of Spanning Tree
- Root Bridge concept
- Forwarding and blocked paths
- Recognizing basic STP information
This is intentionally a fundamentals discussion and demonstration, rather than a detailed Spanning Tree configuration course.
Moving from Ethernet to IPv6
Section 6: IPv6 Fundamentals
Students now build IPv6 knowledge on top of the Ethernet network they have already constructed.
Topics include:
- IPv4 and IPv6
- IPv6 header overview
- 128-bit IPv6 addressing
- Hexadecimal notation
- IPv6 address compression
- Prefix notation
- Global Unicast addresses
- Link-Local addresses
- Loopback address
- Multicast addresses
- Anycast concept
Hands-On Exercise: Examining IPv6 Addressing
Students examine IPv6 addresses on hosts and routers and identify the purpose of the addresses they find.
Day 2 – IPv6 over Ethernet
Section 7: Ethernet Multicast and IPv6
IPv6 provides an excellent example of why understanding Ethernet remains important when working at Layer 3.
Students examine:
- IPv6 multicast addressing
- Ethernet multicast addressing
- IPv6 multicast-to-Ethernet mapping
- Solicited-Node multicast
- All-Nodes multicast
- All-Routers multicast
- Why IPv6 does not use ARP
Packet Analysis Exercise: IPv6 Multicast over Ethernet
Students follow an IPv6 multicast packet from its IPv6 destination address to the corresponding Ethernet destination MAC address.
Section 8: ICMPv6 and Neighbor Discovery
Students examine how IPv6 hosts find neighboring devices and routers.
Topics include:
- ICMPv6
- Neighbor Discovery
- Neighbor Solicitation
- Neighbor Advertisement
- Router Solicitation
- Router Advertisement
- Duplicate Address Detection
- Neighbor reachability
- IPv4 ARP versus IPv6 Neighbor Discovery
Lab: IPv6 Neighbor Discovery
Students generate Neighbor Discovery traffic and examine NS, NA, RS, and RA messages using Wireshark.
The exercise connects the IPv6 messages directly to the Ethernet frames carrying them.
Section 9: IPv6 Automatic Address Configuration
Students examine how IPv6 hosts configure themselves.
Topics include:
- Link-Local address creation
- Router Advertisements
- Prefix Information
- Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
- Default-router discovery
- Duplicate Address Detection
- DHCPv6 fundamentals
- Relationship between Router Advertisements, SLAAC, and DHCPv6
Lab: IPv6 Autoconfiguration
Students observe a host joining an Ethernet network and follow the sequence from Link-Local operation through Router Discovery and Global Unicast address configuration.
Section 10: DHCPv6 Fundamentals
Students receive an introduction to managed IPv6 host configuration.
Topics include:
- Purpose of DHCPv6
- Stateful DHCPv6
- Stateless DHCPv6
- Basic DHCPv6 message operation
- Relationship between DHCPv6 and SLAAC
- When DHCPv6 may be used
Hands-On Demonstration: DHCPv6 Operation
The objective is to understand DHCPv6 behavior without turning this combined course into a detailed DHCPv6 administration class.
Section 11: IPv6 Routing Across Ethernet Networks
Students move from local-link IPv6 operation into routed connectivity.
Topics include:
- IPv6 forwarding
- Connected IPv6 networks
- IPv6 routing tables
- Static IPv6 routes
- Default routes
- Next-hop addresses
- IPv6 routing between VLANs
- Verifying end-to-end IPv6 connectivity
Lab: Routing IPv6 Between VLANs
This exercise deliberately combines both halves of the course.
Students use the Ethernet VLAN environment created earlier and configure IPv6 connectivity between those VLANs.
They must verify:
- VLAN operation
- Ethernet connectivity
- IPv6 addressing
- Neighbor Discovery
- Routing
- End-to-end IPv6 connectivity
Section 12: Introduction to OSPFv3
Students receive an introduction to dynamic IPv6 routing.
Topics include:
- Why dynamic routing is used
- Purpose of OSPFv3
- OSPFv3 neighbors
- Route advertisement
- IPv6 routing-table verification
- Basic troubleshooting
Lab: Basic OSPFv3 Routing
Students configure a small OSPFv3 environment and verify that IPv6 routes are being dynamically exchanged.
The objective is familiarity with IPv6 dynamic routing—not advanced OSPFv3 design.
Section 13: Ethernet and IPv6 Troubleshooting
The course concludes by combining the technologies covered during both days.
Students learn a basic troubleshooting workflow:
- Verify the physical and interface state.
- Verify VLAN membership.
- Verify Ethernet switching.
- Verify IPv6 Link-Local addressing.
- Verify Global Unicast addressing.
- Verify Neighbor Discovery.
- Verify Router Advertisements.
- Verify IPv6 routing.
- Test end-to-end connectivity.
- Use packet captures when additional evidence is required.
Students learn an important troubleshooting principle:
Determine whether the problem is at Layer 2 before assuming the problem is IPv6.
Likewise, successful Ethernet connectivity does not necessarily prove that IPv6 is correctly configured.
Final Integrated Lab: Ethernet and IPv6 Troubleshooting
Students are presented with a network containing one or more Ethernet or IPv6 faults.
Possible problems include:
- Incorrect VLAN configuration
- Incorrect trunk configuration
- Missing Layer 2 connectivity
- Incorrect IPv6 prefix
- Missing Router Advertisement
- Neighbor Discovery problems
- Incorrect IPv6 route
- OSPFv3 configuration problem
Students use:
Switch evidence + Router evidence + Host evidence + Packet evidence
to identify and prove the cause of the problem before making corrective changes.
Course Outcome
This course gives students a practical understanding of how Ethernet and IPv6 work together.
Students leave the course better able to:
Understand the frame.
Understand the packet.
Understand how the two interact.
And troubleshoot the network when communication fails.
Course Availability:
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Course Description, Content, Outline, and Instructional Design are Copyright ©CellStream, Inc.