The IANA has permanently assigned one 13-bit IPv6 Top Level Aggregator (TLA) identifier under the IPv6 Format Prefix 001 for the 6to4 scheme. Its numeric value is 0x2002; that is, it is 2002::/16 when expressed as an IPv6 address prefix.

The format for a 6to4 address is shown in Figure 1:

Figure 1. 6to4 address format

Thus, this prefix has the same format as normal /48 prefixes assigned according to other aggregatable global unicast addresses. It can be abbreviated as 2002:V4ADDR::/48. Within the subscriber site it can be used like any other valid IPv6 prefix, for example, for automated address assignment and discovery for native IPv6 routing, or for the 6over4 mechanism.

6to4 provides a mechanism to allow isolated IPv6 domains, attached to a wide area network with no native IPv6 support, to communicate with other such IPv6 domains with minimal configuration. The idea is to embed IPv4 tunnel addresses into the IPv6 prefixes so that any domain border router can automatically discover tunnel endpoints for outbound IPv6 traffic.

The 6to4 transition mechanism advertises a site's IPv4 tunnel endpoint (to be used for a dynamic tunnel) in a special external routing prefix for that site. When one site tries to reach another site, it discovers the 6to4 tunnel endpoint from a DNS name to address lookup and use a dynamically built tunnel from site to site for communication. The tunnels are transient in that there is no state maintained for them, lasting only as long as a specified transaction uses the path.

A 6to4 site identifies one or more routers to run as a dual-mode stack and to act as a 6to4 router. A globally routable IPv4 address is assigned to the 6to4 router. The 6to4 prefix, which has the 6to4 router's IPv4 address embedded within it, is then advertised by way of the Neighbor Discovery protocol to the 6to4 site, and this prefix is used by hosts within the site to generate a global IPv6 address.

When one IPv6-enabled host at a 6to4 site tries to access an IPv6-enabled host by domain name at another 6to4 site, the DNS returns the IPv6 IP address for that host. The requesting host sends a packet to its nearest router, eventually reaching a site's 6to4 router. When the site's 6to4 router receives the packet and sees that it must send the packet to another site, and the next hop destination prefix is a 2002:://16 prefix, the IPv6 packet is encapsulated as described in Tunneling. The source IPv4 address is the one in the requesting site's 6to4 prefix (which is the IPv4 address of an outgoing interface for one of the site's 6to4 routers) and the destination IPv4 address is the one in the next hop destination 6to4 prefix of the IPv6 packet. When the destination site's 6to4 router receives the IPv4 packet, the IPv4 header is removed, leaving the original IPv6 packet for local forwarding.