AScan6: IPv6 Address Fast Scanning Technology Based on Service Instance Name Association

To quickly detect active IPv6 addresses of Apple nodes, an IPv6 address fast scanning technology based on service instance name association (named AScan6) is proposed. Firstly, AScan6 initiates the discovery of active IPv6 hosts by sending ICMPv6 packets with invalid extension headers. Subsequently, it leverages the DNS-SD protocol to obtain the service types of these hosts. Then, AScan6 queries service details to retrieve their service instance names. Finally, it employs the mDNS protocol to acquire IPv6 addresses associated with these service instance names. A typical IPv6 network environment, comprising 4 desktop Apple versions (macOS) and 6 mobile Apple versions (iOS and iPadOS), is constructed to test AScan6 and compare AScan6 with LLMNR6, LinkScan6 and 4 Nmap scripts. Experimental results show that LLMNR6 and LinkScan6 detected none of valid IPv6 addresses, while AScan6 could detect 20 more IPv6 addresses than the 4 Nmap scripts, thus improving the completeness of IPv6 address scanning results. When focusing on individual Apple node, AScan6 detected 1 to 2 additional IPv6 global unicast addresses compared with the 4 Nmap scripts. In terms of AScan6’s scanning capability for Linux operating systems, AScan6 identified between 1.29 to 2.57 times more IPv6 addresses than the 4 Nmap scripts.