addr6 − An IPv6 address analysis and manipulation tool
addr6 [−a IPV6_ADDR −i] [−d] [−d] [−q] [−s] [−j PREFIX] [−b TYPE] [−k SCOPE] [−w UNICAST_TYPE] [−g IID_TYPE] [−J PREFIX] [−B TYPE] [−K SCOPE] [−W UNICAST_TYPE] [−G IID_TYPE] [−v] [−h]
addr6 is an IPv6 address analysis tool tool. It can employed identify the address type/scope, and infer the type of Interface ID employed by an IPv6 address. Additionally, addr6 can also produce statistics about a set of IPv6 addresses.
addr6 can filter lists of IPv6 addresses based on a number of criteria (address type, address scope, prefixes, duplicate addresses, etc.). There are two types of filters: "block filters" and "accept filters". If any "block filter" is specified, and IPv6 addresses matching any of those filters will be discarded. If any "accept filter" is specified, any IPv6 address matching that filter will be accepted (and printed on stdout).
addr6 takes its parameters as command-line options. Each of the options can be specified with a short name (one character preceded with the hyphen character, as e.g. "−i") or with a long name (a string preceded with two hyphen characters, as e.g. "−−stdin").
−a IPV6_ADDRESS, −−address IPV6_ADDRESS
This option ca be employed to specify a single IPv6 address that is meant to be processed by the tool. This option is typically employed in conjunction with the ’−d’ tool, to decode the IPv6 address in question.
−i, −−stdin
This option request the tool to read IPv6 addresses from standard input (stdin), until an EOF (End-Of-File) condition is found.
−j PREFIX, −−accept PREFIX
Accept IPv6 addresses belonging to the specified IPv6 prefix (PREFIX/LEN).
−b TYPE, −−accept−type TYPE
Accept IPv6 addresses belonging to the specified address type. Valid address types are:
* unicast
* unspec
* multicast
−k SCOPE, −−accept−scope SCOPE
Accept IPv6 addresses belonging to the specified address scope. Valid address scopes are:
* reserved
* interface (or "interface-local)
* link (or "link-local")
* admin (or "admin-local")
* site (or "site-local")
* admin (or "admin-local")
* organization (or "organization-local")
* global
* unassigned
* unspecified
−w UNICAST_TYPE, −−accept−utype UNICAST_TYPE
Accept IPv6 addresses belonging to the specified unicast type. Valid unicast address types are:
* loopback
* ipv4-compat
* ipv4-mapped
* link-local
* site-local
* unique-local
* 6to4
* teredo
* global
−g IID_TYPE, −−accept−iid IID_TYPE
Accept unicast IPv6 addresses with an Interface ID of the specified type. Valid Interface ID types are:
* ieee
* isatap
* ipv4-32
* ipv4-64
* ipv4-all
* embed-port
* embed-port-rev
* embed-port-all
* low-byte
* byte-pattern
* random
−J PREFIX, −−block PREFIX
Block IPv6 addresses belonging to the specified IPv6 prefix (PREFIX/LEN).
−B TYPE, −−block−type TYPE
Block IPv6 addresses belonging to the specified address type. Valid address types are:
* unicast
* unspec
* multicast
−K SCOPE, −−block−scope SCOPE
Block IPv6 addresses belonging to the specified address scope. Valid address scopes are:
* reserved
* interface (or "interface-local)
* link (or "link-local")
* admin (or "admin-local")
* site (or "site-local")
* admin (or "admin-local")
* organization (or "organization-local")
* global
* unassigned
* unspecified
−W UNICAST_TYPE, −−block−utype UNICAST_TYPE
Block IPv6 addresses belonging to the specified unicast type. Valid unicast address types are:
* loopback
* ipv4-compat
* ipv4-mapped
* link-local
* site-local
* unique-local
* 6to4
* teredo
* global
−G IPV6_ADDRESS, −−block−iid IID_TYPE
Block unicast IPv6 addresses with an Interface ID of the specified type. Valid Interface ID types are:
* ieee
* isatap
* ipv4-32
* ipv4-64
* ipv4-all
* embed-port
* embed-port-rev
* embed-port-all
* low-byte
* byte-pattern
* random
−q, −−print−unique
This option causes the tool to eliminate duplicate addresses from the list of IPv6 addresses read from standard input (stdin). That is, when reading a list of addresses from stdin, only the first "copy" of each address will be processed by the tool (with later ones being simply ignored).
−c, −−print−canonic
This option request the tool to print the IPv6 address specfied with the ’−a’ option (or a list of addresses read froom stdin if the ’−i’ option was set) in its canonic form. This is useful to before comparing textual representations of IPv6 addresses, since the same address can usually be written in multiple different ways.
−d, −−print−decode
This option request the tool to decode the IPv6 address specfied with the ’−a’ option (or a list of addresses read froom stdin if the ’−i’ option was set). The current version of the tool supports only decode type, in which information is printed for each address with the following syntax:
AddressType=AddressSubtype=Scope=IIDType=IIDSubtype
This simple syntax is meant to be easy for scripting purposes. Future versions of the tool will incorporate a human-friendly mode.
−s, −−print−stats
This option requests the tool to produce address statistics from the list of IPv6 addresses read from standard input. This option should be used in conjunction with the ’−i’ option, such that multiple addresses can be given as input to addr6.
addr6 will always print the total number of IPv6 addresses that have been examined, and the percentage of unicast, multicast, and unspecified (::) addresses. If at least one unicast address is identified, unicast-specific statistics will be printed. In the same way, if at least one multicast address is identified, then multicast-specific statistics will be printed.
Unicast-specific statistics include:
1) Number and percentage of each unicast address type (global
unicast, link-local unicast, 6to4, Teredo, etc.).
2) Number and percentage of each of the different Interface
ID types (IEEE-based, low-byte, etc.).
Only those unicast address types for which there are multiple possible types of Interface-IDs will be considered for the Interface-ID assessment. Namely,
* 6to4
* Global Unicast
* Link-local Unicast
* Site-local unicast addresses (deprecated)
* Unique local unicast addresses
Unicast address types such as ’Teredo’ are not considered by this analysis, since they have a single type of Interface-ID, as specified by the corresponding specifications.
Multicast-specific statistics include:
1) Number of addresses and percentage of each multicast
address type (Permanent, Embedded-RP, etc).
2) Number addresses and percentage of each of the multicast
address scope different Interface ID types (Link, Interfa-
ce, Global, etc.)
−v, −−verbose
This option selects the "verbosity" of the tool. If this option is left unspecified, only minimum information is printed.
−h, −−help
Print help information for the addr6 tool.
The following sections illustrate typical use cases of the addr6 tool.
Example #1
$ cat addresslist.txt | addr6 −i −q
addr6 will read IPv6 addresses from stdin (’−i’ option), and will only print the first instance of each address (’−q’ option), thus effectively removing any duplicates from the list.
Note: In this particular scenario, the address list results
from the command ’cat addresslist.txt’, that has its output
redirected to the standard input of the addr6 tool.
Example #2
$ addr6 −a fc00::1
Decode the IPv6 address specified with the ’−a’ option. Note that while the ’−d’ option was not set, this is the default behavior of the tool (unless overridden y another option).
Example #3
$ cat addresslist.txt | addr6 −i −q −s
addr6 will read IPv6 addresses from stdin (’−i’ option), will ignore duplicate addresses (’−q’ option), and will print statistics about the processed IPv6 addresses.
Note: In this particular scenario, the address list results
from the command ’cat addresslist.txt’, that has its output
redirected to the standard input of the addr6 tool.
Example #4
$ cat addresslist.txt | addr6 −i −q −d
addr6 will read IPv6 addresses from stdin (’−i’ option), will ignore duplicate addresses (’−q’ option), and will decode each of the remaining addresses.
Note: In this particular scenario, the address list results
from the command ’cat addresslist.txt’, that has its output
redirected to the standard input of the addr6 tool.
Example #5
$ cat addresslist.txt | addr6 −i −j 2001:db8::/16
addr6 will read IPv6 addresses from stdin (’−i’ option), will discard any addresses that do not belong to the prefix 2001:db8::/16 (i.e., it will "accept" addresses belonging to such prefix).
Note: In this particular scenario, the address list results
from the command ’cat addresslist.txt’, that has its output
redirected to the standard input of the addr6 tool.
draft-ietf-opsec-ipv6−host-scanning (available at: <http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft−ietf−opsec−ipv6−host−scanning>) for a discussion of different IPv6 address patterns.
The addr6 tool and the corresponding manual pages were produced by Fernando Gont <fgont AT si6networks DOT com> for SI6 Networks <http://www.si6networks.com>.
Copyright (c) 2011−2013 Fernando Gont.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front−Cover Texts, and no Back−Cover Texts. A copy of the license is available at <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html>.