3.3. Address types (host part)

For auto-configuration and mobility issues, it was decided to use the lower 64 bits as host part of the address in most of the current address types. Therefore each single subnet can hold a large amount of addresses.

This host part can be inspected differently:

3.3.1. Automatically computed (also known as stateless)

With auto-configuration, the host part of the address is computed by converting the MAC address of an interface (if available), with the EUI-64 method, to a unique IPv6 address. If no MAC address is available (happens e.g. on virtual devices), something else (like the IPv4 addresses or the MAC address of a physical interface) is used instead.

Consider again the first example

3ffe:ffff:100:f101:210:a4ff:fee3:9566
   

here,

210:a4ff:fee3:9566 
   

is the host part and computed from the NIC's MAC address

00:10:A4:E3:95:66 
   

using the IEEE-Tutorial EUI-64 design for EUI-48 identifiers.

3.3.2. Manually set

For servers it's probably easier to remember simpler addresses, this can also be accommodated. It is possible to assign an additional IPv6 address to an interface, e.g.

3ffe:ffff:100:f101::1
   

For manual suffixes like "::1" shown in the above example it's required that the 6th most significant bit is set to 0 (the universal/local bit of the automatically generated identifier). Also some other (otherwise unchosen ) bit combinations are reserved for anycast addresses, too.