Setting DNS and Default Gateway Settings for IPv6 with DHCPv6

This is a posting in response to my posting last October about how to set up DHCP on Windows Server 2008 to deliver IPv6 addresses. The question was how to publish the DNS and Default Gateway addresses to your IPv6 clients.  I’m sorry to say that the Microsoft implementation of DHCPv6 does not have these options.  So, here is an alternative…Create a login script.

After reading through the manual method posted at TechNet, I found two examples.  One to set the Default Gateway and one to set the DNS addresses.  Below is the relevant sections of that TechNet article with the examples in red.

Adding Default Gateways

To configure a default gateway, you can use the netsh interface ipv6 add route command and add a default route (::/0) with the following syntax:
netsh interface ipv6 add route [prefix=]::/0 [interface=]Interface_Name_or_Index [[nexthop=]IPv6_Address] [[siteprefixlength=]Length] [[metric=]Metric_Value] [[publish=]no|yes|immortal] [[validlifetime=]Time|infinite] [[preferredlifetime=]Time|infinite] [[store=]active|persistent]

• prefix The IPv6 address prefix and prefix length for the default route. For other routes, you can substitute ::/0 withAddress_Prefix/Prefix_Length.
• interface The connection or adapter's name or interface index.
• nexthop If the prefix is for destinations that are not on the local link, the next-hop IPv6 address of a neighboring router.
• siteprefixlength If the prefix is for destinations on the local link, you can optionally specify the prefix length for the address prefix assigned to the site to which this IPv6 node belongs.
• metric A value that specifies the preference for using the route. Lower values are more preferred.
• publish As an IPv6 router, this option specifies whether the subnet prefix corresponding to the route will be included in router advertisements and whether the lifetimes for the prefixes are infinite (the immortal option).
• validlifetime The lifetime over which the route is valid. Time values can be expressed in days, hours, minutes, and seconds, for example 1d2h3m4s. The default value is infinite.
• preferredlifetime The lifetime over which the route is preferred. Time values can be expressed in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. The default value is infinite.
• store How to store the route, either active (route is removed upon system restart) or persistent (route remains after restart) (default).

For example, to add a default route that uses the interface named "Local Area Connection" with a next-hop address of fe80::2aa:ff:fe9a:21b8, you would use the following command:
netsh interface ipv6 add route ::/0 "Local Area Connection" fe80::2aa:ff:fe9a:21b8

Adding DNS Servers

To configure the IPv6 addresses of DNS servers, you can use the netsh interface ipv6 add dnsserver command with the following syntax:
netsh interface ipv6 add dnsserver [interface=]Interface_Name_or_Index [[address=]IPv6_Address] [[index=]Preference_Value]

• interface The connection or adapter's name or interface index.
• address The IPv6 address of the DNS server.
• index The preference for the DNS server address.
  By default, the DNS server is added to the end of the list of DNS servers. If an index is specified, the DNS server is placed in that position in the list and the other DNS servers are moved down the list.

For example, to add a DNS server with the IPv6 address 2001:db8::99:4acd::8 that uses the interface named "Local Area Connection," you would use the following command:
netsh interface ipv6 add dnsserver "Local Area Connection" 2001:db8::99:4acd::8