address_family Specifies the protocol family for which to report the configuration details. The following table lists valid values for address_ family: Address Type Value IPv4 inet IPv6 inet6 When changing an interface configuration, if the address family is not inet, you must specify an address family, which may alter the interpretation of any parameters that follow. You must specify an address family because an interface can receive transmissions in different protocols, each of which may require a separate naming scheme. address Specifies the network address of the interface being configured. For the inet address family, the address argument is either a hostname or an Internet address in the standard dotted-decimal notation with or without the optional Classless Interdomain Routing (CIDR) bitmask (/bitmask). If using the bitmask argument, do not use the netmask parameter. For the inet6 address family, the address argument is either a host name or the 128-bit IPv6 address, as follows: x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x In this format, each x is the hexadecimal value of a 16-bit portion of the address. An IPv6 address typically consists of a 64-bit prefix followed by a 64-bit interface identifier. See the HP TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS Guide to IPv6 manual for more information on IPv6 addresses. ip6prefix Specifies that the address argument is an IPv6 prefix and that the interface identifier is to be appended to it to create a 128-bit IPv6 address when configuring an address on the interface. interface identifier Identifies an interface on a subnet, and is typically the interface's link-layer address. Most prefixes are required to have 64-bit interface identifiers. For 48-bit MAC addresses, the interface identifier is created by inserting the hexadecimal values of 0xFF and 0xFE in the middle of the address and inverting the universal/local bit (bit 7) in the resulting 64-bit address. For example, the 48-bit MAC address 0:0:f8:23:10:f3 becomes the 64-bit interface identifier 2:0:f8:ff:fe:23:10:f3. dest_address Specifies the address of the correspondent on the remote end of a point-to-point link.