SLAAC

networking

Stateless Address Autoconfiguration: IPv6 hosts build their own addresses from router advertisements - no DHCP server required, no lease table kept.

The EUI-64 method derived addresses from MACs until privacy extensions randomized them.

Stateless address autoconfiguration lets an IPv6 host build its own address from a prefix the router advertises, with no server involved. It is the mechanism that makes IPv6 networks work before anything resembling DHCP is configured.

Its consequence for operations is that the address is chosen by the host rather than assigned, so there is no lease database to consult. Privacy extensions make this sharper by rotating the interface identifier periodically, which is good for users and awkward for anyone trying to attribute activity to a device after the fact. Networks that need a record generally run DHCPv6 alongside, and the interaction between the router advertisement flags and the DHCPv6 server is where most IPv6 addressing confusion lives.

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