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.TH "NDISC6" "8" "$Date$" "ndisc6" "System Manager's Manual"
.SH NAME
ndisc6 \- ICMPv6 Neighbor Discovery tool
.SH SYNOPSIS
.BR "ndisc6" " [" "-1mnqv" "] [" "-r attempts" "] [" "-s source_ip" "]"
.BR "" "[" "-w wait_ms" "] <" "IPv6 address" "> <" "iface" ">"

.SH DESCRIPTON
.B NDisc6
is an Unix program which implements the ICMPv6 Neighbor Discovery in
userland (it is normally done by the kernel). It is used to lookup the
link-layer address (layer 2 address, MAC in the case of Ethernet) of
any on-link IPv6 node.

The IPv6 address of the node must be specified, as well as the
networking interface on which to perform the lookup.

.SH OPTIONS

.TP
.BR "\-1" " or " "\-\-single"
Exit as soon as the first advertisement is received (default).

.TP
.BR "\-h" " or " "\-\-help"
Display some help and exit.

.TP
.BR "\-m" " or " "\-\-multiple"
Wait for possible duplicate advertisements and print all of them.

.TP
.BR "\-n" " or " "\-\-numeric"
If the first parameter is not a valid IPv6 address, do not try to
resolve it as a DNS hostname.

.TP
.BR "\-q" " or " "\-\-quiet"
Only display link-layer address. Display nothing in case of failure.
That is mostly useful when calling the program from a shell script.

.TP
.BR "\-r attempts" " or " "\-\-retry attempts"
Send ICMPv6 Neighbor Discovery that many times until a reply is
received, or abort. By default, ndisc6 will try 3 times before aborting
(MAX_MULTICAST_SOLICIT and MAX_UNICAST_SOLICIT from RFC2461).

.TP
.BR "\-s source_ip" " or " "\-\-source source_ip"
Specify the IPv6 address to be used as the source for the neighbor
solicitation packets.

.TP
.BR "\-V" " or " "\-\-version"
Display program version and license and exit.

.TP
.BR "\-v" " or " "\-\-verbose"
Display verbose information. That is the default.

.TP
.BR "\-w wait_ms" " or " "\-\-wait wait_ms"
.RI "Wait " "wait_ms" " milliseconds for a response before retrying."
By default, ndisc6 waits 1 second between each attempts
(RETRANS_TIMER from RFC2461).

.PP
.RB "If " "ndisc6" " does not receive any response after the specified number"
.RI "of attempts waiting for " "wait_ms" " milliseconds each time, it will"
exit with code 2. On error, it exits with code 1.
Otherwise it exits with code 0. This makes it possible to use the exit
code to see if a host is on-link or not.

.SH DIAGNOSTICS

If you get no response while you know the remote host is up, it is
most likely that it is not on-link, that is to say, you must cross one
or more routers to reach it. By design, IPv6 nodes ignore ICMPv6
Neighbor Discovery packets received from nodes not on the same link
(i.e. Ethernet segment), for the sake of security. Technically, that is
done by ensuring that the Hop limit (TTL) is 255.

.RB "Note that you cannot use " "ndisc6" " to lookup the local host's link-layer"
address.

.SH SECURITY
.RB "" "ndisc6" " "
.RI "should be " "setuid" " " "root" " to allow use by"
non-privileged users. It will drop its root privileges before any attempt
is made to send or receive data from the network to reduce the possible
impact of a security vulnerability.

.SH "SEE ALSO"
ping6(8), rdisc6(8), ipv6(7)

.SH AUTHOR
R\[char233]mi Denis-Courmont <remi at remlab dot net>

http://www.remlab.net/ndisc6/