CCNA Foundations: Link-Local & Neighbor Discovery
Archive lab
A focused, enterprise-clean IPv6 day in a progressive CCNA series. You will enable IPv6 on a single user LAN, assign a deterministic link-local gateway, and observe Neighbor Discovery (ND) in action. IPv4 is already working; your job is to turn on IPv6 unicast routing, add a global unicast /64 to the gateway interface, and set an explicit link-local address so hosts learn a predictable next-hop. You will verify SLAAC-derived host addresses, default routes learned via RA, and ND neighbor tables on the router, and then test by pinging both the router’s link-local and global addresses from the hosts.
Learning objectives
- Explain how IPv6 link-local addresses are automatically formed and why they exist on every IPv6-enabled interface
- Enable IPv6 unicast routing and configure a /64 on a LAN interface
- Configure an explicit IPv6 link-local address on a router interface for deterministic gateway addressing
- Verify SLAAC host addressing and default route learned via Router Advertisements
- Use show ipv6 neighbors and show ipv6 interface to validate ND and interface state
- Ping a link-local address using the correct interface scope
Troubleshooting focus
- If hosts do not learn IPv6 addresses, check that the router has ipv6 unicast-routing enabled and a global IPv6 /64 on the LAN interface so it can send RAs
- If pinging a link-local fails, ensure you specify the outgoing interface (scope) on Linux (e.g., ping6 fe80::x%eth0)
- If the router neighbor table is empty, generate traffic from hosts (ping the router) and confirm the switch ports are in the correct access VLAN toward the router
- If IPv4 works but IPv6 does not, look for a missing or incorrect explicit link-local on the gateway and verify no typos in the global /64 prefix
Topology
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How this lab is graded
- Build it your way. Where a lab lets you choose a value — a VLAN name, an interface description — grading checks that you configured it, not which name you picked. Names that another line has to reference, like an ACL applied with
access-class, are stated in the guide and do have to match. - Addresses, modes and protocol keywords are exact. An IP address, a subnet mask,
switchport mode trunk, an encapsulation — these carry the meaning of the lab, so they are graded as written in the guide. - Grading reads your saved configuration. Export the lab from CML after you have configured it, and make sure anything you set is in the running-config — a change that only exists in a terminal session never reaches the grader.
- You can submit as many times as you like. Your best score stands, and each attempt tells you which checks passed so you can work the gaps.
- Scored something you believe is correct? Use Report an issue on this page — that is exactly how the grading fixes in the changelog got found.
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