mac6

Mac6

mac6 is a simple CLI that compute a link local IPv6 address from a given MAC address.

Usage

Usage: mac6 [ -i=<interface> ] MAC

Compute IPv6 link-local address from MAC address

Arguments:
  MAC               Mac address

Options:
  -i, --interface   Out interface to build IPv6 link local string

Examples

1. Getting the link-local IPv6 address from a MAC address

$ mac6 8b:7a:1b:06:06:75
fe80::897a:1bff:fe06:0675

1. Getting the link-local IPv6 address from a MAC address with the out interface

$ mac6 -i eth0 8b:7a:1b:06:06:75
fe80::897a:1bff:fe06:0675%eth0

Main use case

The initial idea for this project is to ease connecting to a machine having an IPv6 stack. Today most of the Linux distribution comes with a dual IP stack. So, even when working on a legacy IPv4 network, it' possible to connect to any other machine using it's IPv6 link-local address. It can be usefull for instance to connected to a machine that failed its DHCP request.

When you know the machine's MAC address, you can use mac6 to contact a machine through it's IPv6 link-local address.

Examples

$ ping6 $(mac6 -i eth0 8b:7a:1b:06:06:75)

is equivalent to

$ ping6 fe80::897a:1bff:fe06:0675%eth0

And

$ ssh user@$(mac6 -i eth0 8b:7a:1b:06:06:75)

is equivalent to

$ ssh user@fe80::897a:1bff:fe06:0675%eth0

License

Mac6 is licensed under the MIT license.