Patent ID: 8065515

Claim:
A method comprising: detecting, by a router, an unsolicited first router advertisement message from an attachment router that provides an attachment link used by the router, the first router advertisement message specifying a first IPv6 address prefix owned by the attachment router and usable for address autoconfiguration on the attachment link; detecting, by the router, an unsolicited delegated IPv6 address prefix from the attachment router and that is available for use by the router; and automatically selecting by the router a second IPv6 address prefix based on concatenating a suffix to the delegated IPv6 address prefix, including dynamically generating the suffix based on a prescribed distributed hash operation executed by the router, the second IPv6 address prefix for use on at least one ingress link of the router, and outputting onto the attachment link a neighbor solicitation message having a prefix claim option, the prefix claim option specifying one of ownership or attempted ownership of the second IPv6 address prefix by the router to at least one other router on the attachment link and that is distinct from the attachment router.