Neighbor Discovery Optimization for IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs)

The IETF work in IPv6 over Low-power Wireless Personal Area Network
(6LoWPAN) defines 6LoWPANs such as IEEE 802.15.4. This and other
similar link technologies have limited or no usage of multicast
signaling due to energy conservation. In addition, the wireless
network may not strictly follow the traditional concept of IP subnets
and IP links. IPv6 Neighbor Discovery was not designed for non-
transitive wireless links, as its reliance on the traditional IPv6
link concept and its heavy use of multicast make it inefficient and
sometimes impractical in a low-power and lossy network. This
document describes simple optimizations to IPv6 Neighbor Discovery,
its addressing mechanisms, and duplicate address detection for Low-
power Wireless Personal Area Networks and similar networks. The
document thus updates RFC 4944 to specify the use of the
optimizations defined here.