a site without the need for a global prefix.  Although a subnet ID
   may be up to 54-bits long, it is expected that globally-connected
   sites will use the same subnet IDs for site-local and global
   prefixes.

   Routers must not forward any packets with site-local source or
   destination addresses outside of the site.











 
RFC 3513              IPv6 Addressing Architecture            April 2003


2.6 Anycast Addresses

   An IPv6 anycast address is an address that is assigned to more than
   one interface (typically belonging to different nodes), with the
   property that a packet sent to an anycast address is routed to the
   "nearest" interface having that address, according to the routing
   protocols' measure of distance.

   Anycast addresses are allocated from the unicast address space, using
   any of the defined unicast address formats.  Thus, anycast addresses
   are syntactically indistinguishable from unicast addresses.  When a
   unicast address is assigned to more than one interface, thus turning
   it into an anycast address, the nodes to which the address is
   assigned must be explicitly configured to know that it is an anycast
   address.

   For any assigned anycast address, there is a longest prefix P of that
   address that identifies the topological region in which all
   interfaces belonging to that anycast address reside.  Within the
   region identified by P, the anycast address must be maintained as a
   separate entry in the routing system (commonly referred to as a "host
   route"); outside the region identified by P, the anycast address may
   be aggregated into the routing entry for prefix P.

   Note that in the worst case, the prefix P of an anycast set may be
   the null prefix, i.e., the members of the set may have no topological
   locality.  In that case, the anycast address must be maintained as a
   separate routing entry throughout the entire internet, which presents
   a severe scaling limit on how many such "global" anycast sets may be
   supported.  Therefore, it is expected that support for global anycast
   sets may be unavailable or very restricted.

   One expected use of anycast addresses is to identify the set of
   routers belonging to an organization providing internet service.
   Such addresses could be used as intermediate addresses in an IPv6
   Routing header, to cause a packet to be delivered via a particular
   service provider or sequence of service providers.

   Some other possible uses are to identify the set of routers attached
   to a particular subnet, or the set of routers providing entry into a
   particular routing domain.

   There is little experience with widespread, arbitrary use of internet
   anycast addresses, and some known complications and hazards when
   using them in their full generality [ANYCST].  Until more experience
   has been gained and solutions are specified, the following
   restrictions are imposed on IPv6 anycast addresses:





 
RFC 3513              IPv6 Addressing Architecture            April 2003


   o  An anycast address must not be used as the source address of an
      IPv6 packet.

   o  An anycast address must not be assigned to an IPv6 host, that is,
      it may be assigned to an IPv6 router only.

2.6.1 Required Anycast Address

   The Subnet-Router anycast address is predefined.  Its format is as
   follows:

   |                         n bits                 |   128-n bits   |
   +------------------------------------------------+----------------+
   |                   subnet prefix                | 00000000000000 |
   +------------------------------------------------+----------------+

   The "subnet prefix" in an anycast address is the prefix which
   identifies a specific link.  This anycast address is syntactically
   the same as a unicast address for an interface on the link with the
   interface identifier set to zero.

   Packets sent to the Subnet-Router anycast address will be delivered