The way IPv6 behaves on the local network has changed. Instead of the Address Res‐
olution Protocol (ARP) being used to identify neighbors on the local network, IPv6
replaces and enhances that functionality through new Internet Control Message Pro‐
tocol (ICMP) messages. Coming with IPv6 is the Neighbor Discovery Protocol,
which is used to help a system connecting to the network by providing details about
the local network. ICMPv6 has been enhanced with the Router Solicitation and
Router Advertisement messages as well as the Neighbor Solicitation and Neighbor
Advertisement messages. These four messages help a system to get situated on a net‐
work with all the relevant information needed, including the local gateway and
domain name servers used on that network.
We will be able to test some of these features to determine how a system might per‐
form under load but also by manipulating the messages in ways that may cause the
target system to misbehave. The tools
na6
,
ns6
,
ra6
, and
rs6
all focus on sending arbi‐
trary messages to the network by using the different ICMPv6 messages indicated pre‐
viously. Whereas most systems will provide reasonable information to the network,
to the best of their knowledge and configuration, these tools allow us to inject poten‐
tially broken messages out to the network to see how systems behave with such mes‐
sages. In addition to those programs, the suite provides
tcp6
, which can be used to
send arbitrary TCP messages out to the network, allowing the possibility of TCP-
based attacks.
No matter what sort of stress testing you are doing, it’s important to keep as many
notes as possible so you can provide detailed information as to what was going on
when a failure occurred. Monitoring and logging are important here.
