In the context of router configuration Neighbour Discovery along as Router Discovery has a few special implications. A router periodically sends a router advertisement from each of its multicast interfaces, announcing its availability. Hosts listen for these advertisements for address autoconfiguration and discovery of link-local addresses of the neighboring routers. When a host starts, it multicasts a router solicitation to ask for immediate advertisements.

The router discovery messages do not constitute a routing protocol. They enable hosts to discover the existence of neighboring routers, but are not used to determine which router is best to reach a particular destination. If more than one router advertises its presence on the link, it depends on the IPv6 implementation of the host how it decides which router to use as its preferred default route.