The IPv6 Ready certification programs focus on RFC Conformance and Interoperability.   "RFC Conformance" mean the tests verify that the DUT (device under test) does what it is supposed to do based on the RFC specifications.   "Interoperability" means the tests verify that the DUT can send and receive IPv6 datagrams to and from other devices.  The "RFC Conformance" and "Interoperability" testing is based on the TAHI conformance and interoperability tests.  The tests are freely available.

The IPv6 tests from InterWorking Labs are complimentary to the TAHI tests.   Instead of sending well behaved IPv6 datagrams to the DUT, Maxwell sits in the middle of the protocol conversation between two DUTs and intercepts and changes the datagrams in unique ways while the protocol conversation continues.  Maxwell will modify the datagrams by changing the IPv6 protocol, the timing, the sequence, and so on to verify that the DUTs not only handle well behaved IPv6 traffic, but also malformed, incorrect, and unusual IPv6 traffic.   In this sense, Maxwell is a much deeper test of the quality of the IPv6 implementation, in that it goes beyond RFC Conformance and Interoperability testing to focus on:

• Negative Testing
• Inopportune Testing
• Deep-path Testing
• Robustness (Security) Testing

A discussion of these types of testing can be found in the Network Protocol Testing Overview.

Maxwell is there to measure how your stack handles deviations from the RFCs. The TAHI Conformance tests are there to verify that you are in compliance with the applicable RFCs. The TAHI interoperability tests measure how well compliant stacks play with other compliant stacks and routers.

It is possible for products to pass the TAHI tests, receive the IPv6 Ready certification, and then fail in an installation because they were not tested to properly respond to malicious or malformed or simply unusual IPv6 datagrams.