Enable IPv6 SLAAC on HPE OfficeConnect 1920 switches

The HPE OfficeConnect 1920 switch series is designed for SMBs. The switch is perfect for small environments, that require features like VLANs, routing or 802.1x. This switch is smart-managed, so it has “only” a web interface and only a limited CLI.

I have two switches in my lab: A 1910-8G and the successor, a 1920-24G. Although the device supports IPv6, it doesn’t support SLAAC (Stateless Address Autoconfiguration) by default. The switch does not send router advertisements (RA). I’m using IPv6 in my lab (Stateless DHCPv6 + SLAAC), so the missing RAs were a problem for me, or at least, annoying. Fortunately you can change the default behaviour.

Enable router advertisements (RA)

To change the default behaviour of the HPE 1920, you have to use the CLI. The CLI is very limited, but there’s a hidden CLI command, which enables access to nearly all available features. If you are familiar with HPEs Comware based switches, you will notice, that the switch is a Comware-based device.

login as: admin
admin@192.168.200.94's password:

******************************************************************************
* Copyright (c) 2010-2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP          *
* Without the owner's prior written consent,                                 *
* no decompiling or reverse-engineering shall be allowed.                    *
******************************************************************************

<1920-24G>_cmdline-mode on
All commands can be displayed and executed. Continue? [Y/N]y
Please input password: Jinhua1920unauthorized
Warning: Now you enter an all-command mode for developer's testing, some commands may affect operation by wrong use, please carefully use it with our engineer's direction.
<1920-24G>sys
System View: return to User View with Ctrl+Z.

After switching to the system-view, we can change the default behaviour for each VLAN interface. I have multiple VLAN interfaces and each VLAN interface has an IPv4 and an unique local address (ULA) IPv6 address.

[1920-24G]interface Vlan-interface 3
[1920-24G-Vlan-interface3]display this
#
interface Vlan-interface3
 ipv6 address FDDA:28AD:487:3:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFE/64
 ip address 192.168.200.94 255.255.255.224
 dhcp select relay
 dhcp relay server-select 0
#
return

[1920-24G-Vlan-interface3]undo ipv6 nd ra halt
[1920-24G-Vlan-interface3]ipv6 nd ra prefix FDDA:28AD:487:3::/64 86400 3600
[1920-24G-Vlan-interface3]display this
#
interface Vlan-interface3
 ipv6 nd ra prefix FDDA:28AD:487:3::/64 86400 3600
 undo ipv6 nd ra halt
 ipv6 address FDDA:28AD:487:3:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFE/64
 ip address 192.168.200.94 255.255.255.224
 dhcp select relay
 dhcp relay server-select 0
#
return
[1920-24G-Vlan-interface3]quit

The first command enables router advertisements. The second command adds the prefix which should be announced. That’s it. Don’t forget to save the changed configuration with “save force”. If you have more than one VLAN interface, enter this command in each VLAN interface context you wish to change.