address is denoted with colons separating address elements the optional header extension 78 may contain headers in addition to the one provided by ipv6 the optional headers may be used to establish additional security for the packet in order to achieve packet security by conveying security association information in an ipv6 address each communications process is assigned to a virtual network interface the virtual network interface assigns both a virtual address for packet delivery and indicates the supernet and channel where the ip address resides the choice of supernet and channel indicates which keying encryption decryption and authentication material to use and which type of address mapping to use in further stages of processing the packet 0028 fig5 illustrates a process used to assign a virtual network address in accordance with one embodiment of the invention the virtual network interface includes a client 106 a supernet authentication secure daemon sasd 108 and a virtual address resolution protocol daemon varpd 110 to exchange addresses using the virtual network interface the client 106 executes a u201c supernet attach u201d command denoted as data transfer 100 to the sasd 108 the supernet attach command retrieves the virtual network address of the recipient i e ipv6 address the supernet id and channel id the sasd 108 responds by replying denoted as data transfer 102 to the client 106 with the supernet configuration information which includes the ipv6 address containing an encoded security context i e virtual network address supernet id and channel id the sasd 108 also registers the mapping of the ipv6 address information denoted as data transfer 104 with the varpd 110 the varpd 110 maps the virtual address of the recipient within the supernet.