Patent ID: 8352618

Claim:
A method of enabling host devices having an IPsec policy to communicate with one another via an IPv6 communication network, comprising: extracting a Media Access Control identifier (MAC ID) for a target host from a security policy for an IPv6 address for the target host; searching for the MAC ID of the target host in an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) table on a source host; upon locating the MAC ID of the target host, creating a temporal neighbor cache entry in a neighbor cache table for the target host; enabling a security association between the source host and the target host based on the temporal neighbor entry in the neighbor cache table, which allows IPv6 communications to be exchanged between the target host and the source host; forwarding an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) request to the target host, the ARP request having a Media Access Control Identifier (MAC ID) associated with the source host; receiving the ARP request on the target host; comparing the MAC ID of the source host with a local ARP table associated with the target host; and if the MAC ID of the source host matches a MAC ID on the local ARP table of the target host, creating a temporal neighbor cache entry in a neighbor cache table associated with the target host.