Patent ID: 7941512

Claim:
A method comprising: detecting a connection to a cable modem termination system (CMTS); determining whether the CMTS is IPv6-capable; booting up in one of “IPv6 only mode” and “IPv6 with IPv4 fallback mode” responsive to a determination that the CMTS is IPv6-capable; booting up in IPv4 mode responsive to a determination that the CMTS is not IPv6-capable; establishing a link layer connection to an access server; obtaining a management address, wherein the management address is at least one of an IPv6 and an IPv4 address; obtaining a TFTP server address, wherein the server address is either IPv6 or IPv4; downloading a configuration file from the TFTP server; registering with the access server as IPv6 capable; maintaining an IP address/prefix-MAC mapping database; and determining whether the IPv6 address belongs to a particular media access control (MAC) address based on the IP address/prefix-MAC mapping database.