IPv6 Network Addresses

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 1
IPv4 Issues
The Need for IPv6

 IPv6 is designed to be the successor to IPv4

 Depletion of IPv4 address space has been the motivating
factor for moving to IPv6
 Projections show that all five RIRs will run out of IPv4
addresses between 2015 and 2020
 With an increasing Internet population, a limited IPv4 address
space, issues with NAT and an Internet of things, the time
has come to begin the transition to IPv6!

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 2
IPv4 Issues
The Need for IPv6

 IPv4 has theoretical maximum of 4.3 billion addresses plus

private addresses in combination with NAT
 IPv6 larger 128-bit address space providing for 340
undecillion addresses
 IPv6 fixes the limitations of IPv4 and include additional
enhancements such as ICMPv6

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 3
IPv4 Issues
IPv4 and IPv6 Coexistence
The migration techniques can be divided into three
categories:

#1

Dual-stack: Allows IPv4 and IPv6 to

coexist on the same network. Devices run
both IPv4 and IPv6 protocol stacks
simultaneously.
Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 4
IPv4 Issues
IPv4 and IPv6 Coexistence
The migration techniques can be divided into three
categories:

#2

Tunnelling: A method of transporting an IPv6

packet over an IPv4 network. The IPv6 packet
is encapsulated inside an IPv4 packet.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 5
IPv4 Issues
IPv4 and IPv6 Coexistence
The migration techniques can be divided into three
categories:

#3

Translation: Network Address Translation 64 (NAT64)

allows IPv6-enabled devices to communicate with IPv4-
enabled devices using a translation technique similar to
NAT for IPv4. An IPv6 packet is translated to an IPv4
packet, and vice versa. 6
Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential
IPv6 Addressing
Hexadecimal Number System

 Hexadecimal is a
base sixteen system
 Base 16 numbering
system uses the
numbers 0 to 9 and
the letters A to F
 Four bits (half of a
byte) can be
represented with a
single hexadecimal
value

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 7
IPv6 Addressing
IPv6 Address Representation
 128 bits in length and written as a string of hexadecimal
values
 In IPv6, 4 bits represents a single hexadecimal digit, 32
hexadecimal values = IPv6 address

2001:0DB8:0000:1111:0000:0000:0000:0200
FE80:0000:0000:0000:0123:4567:89AB:CDEF

 Hextet used to refer to a segment of 16 bits or four

hexadecimals
 Can be written in either lowercase or uppercase
Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 8
IPv6 Addressing
Rule 1- Omitting Leading 0s
 The first rule to help reduce the notation of IPv6 addresses is
any leading 0s (zeros) in any 16-bit section or hextet can be
omitted
 01AB can be represented as 1AB
 09F0 can be represented as 9F0
 0A00 can be represented as A00
 00AB can be represented as AB

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 9
IPv6 Addressing
Rule 2- Omitting All 0 Segments
 A double colon (::) can replace any single, contiguous string
of one or more 16-bit segments (hextets) consisting of all 0’s
 Double colon (::) can only be used once within an address
otherwise the address will be ambiguous
 Known as the compressed format
 Incorrect address - 2001:0DB8::ABCD::1234

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 10
IPv6 Addressing
Rule 2- Omitting All 0 Segments
 Examples

#1

#2

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 11
Types of IPv6 Addresses
IPv6 Address Types

There are three types of IPv6 addresses:

• Unicast

• Multicast

• Anycast.

Note: IPv6 does not have broadcast addresses.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 12
Types of IPv6 Addresses
IPv6 Prefix Length
 IPv6 does not use the dotted-decimal subnet mask notation
 Prefix length indicates the network portion of an IPv6 address
using the following format:
• IPv6 address/prefix length
• Prefix length can range from 0 to 128
• Typical prefix length is /64

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 13
Types of IPv6 Addresses
IPv6 Unicast Addresses
 Unicast
• Uniquely identifies an interface on an IPv6-enabled device
• A packet sent to a unicast address is received by the interface that is
assigned that address.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 14
Types of IPv6 Addresses
IPv6 Unicast Addresses

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 15
Types of IPv6 Addresses
IPv6 Unicast Addresses
 Global unicast
• Similar to a public IPv4 address
• Globally unique
• Internet routable addresses.
• Can be configured statically or assigned dynamically

 Link-local
• Used to communicate with other devices on the same local link
• Confined to a single link - not routable beyond the link

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 16
Types of IPv6 Addresses
IPv6 Unicast Addresses
 Loopback
• Used by a host to send a packet to itself and cannot be assigned to a
physical interface
• Ping an IPv6 loopback address to test the configuration of TCP/IP on
the local host
• All-0s except for the last bit, represented as ::1/128 or just ::1

 Unspecified address
• All-0’s address represented as ::/128 or just ::
• Cannot be assigned to an interface and is only used as a source
address
• An unspecified address is used as a source address when the
device does not yet have a permanent IPv6 address or when the
source of the packet is irrelevant to the destination

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 17
Types of IPv6 Addresses
IPv6 Unicast Addresses
 Unique local
• Similar to private addresses for IPv4
• Used for local addressing within a site or between a limited number
of sites
• In the range of FC00::/7 to FDFF::/7

 IPv4 embedded (not covered in this course)

• Used to help transition from IPv4 to IPv6

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 18
Types of IPv6 Addresses
IPv6 Link-Local Unicast Addresses
 Every IPv6-enabled network interface is REQUIRED to have
a link-local address
 Enables a device to communicate with other IPv6-enabled
devices on the same link and only on that link (subnet)
 FE80::/10 range, first 10 bits are 1111 1110 10xx xxxx
 1111 1110 1000 0000 (FE80) - 1111 1110 1011 1111 (FEBF)

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 19
Types of IPv6 Addresses
IPv6 Link-Local Unicast Addresses
 Packets with a source or destination link-local address
cannot be routed beyond the link from where the packet
originated

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 20
IPv6 Unicast Addresses
Structure of an IPv6 Global Unicast Address
 IPv6 global unicast addresses are globally unique and
routable on the IPv6 Internet
 Equivalent to public IPv4 addresses
 ICANN allocates IPv6 address blocks to the five RIRs
 Currently, only global unicast addresses with the first three
bits of 001 or 2000::/3 are being assigned

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 21
IPv6 Unicast Addresses
Structure of an IPv6 Global Unicast Address

• Currently, only global unicast addresses with the first

three bits of 001 or 2000::/3 are being assigned

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 22
IPv6 Unicast Addresses
Structure of an IPv6 Global Unicast Address
 A global unicast address has three parts:

 Global Routing Prefix- prefix or network portion of the

address assigned by the provider, such as an ISP, to a
customer or site, currently, RIR’s assign a /48 global routing
prefix to customers
 2001:0DB8:ACAD::/48 has a prefix that indicates that the first
48 bits (2001:0DB8:ACAD) is the prefix or network portion
Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 23
IPv6 Unicast Addresses
Structure of an IPv6 Global Unicast Address
 Subnet ID
• Used by an organization to identify subnets within its site

 Interface ID
• Equivalent to the host portion of an IPv4 address
• Used because a single host may have multiple interfaces, each
having one or more IPv6 addresses

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 24
IPv6 Unicast Addresses
Static Configuration of an IPv6 Global Unicast Address

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 26
IPv6 Unicast Addresses
EUI-64 Process or Randomly Generated

EUI-64 Process
 process uses a client’s 48-bit Ethernet MAC address, and
inserts another 16 bits in the middle of the 46-bit MAC
address to create a 64-bit Interface ID
 advantage is Ethernet MAC address can be used to
determine the Interface – easily tracked

EUI-64 Interface ID is represented in binary and is made up

of three parts:
 24-bit OUI from the client MAC address, but the 7th bit
(the Universally/Locally bit) is reversed (0 becomes a 1)
 inserted 16-bit value FFFE
 24-bit device identifier from the client MAC address

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 27
IPv6 Unicast Addresses
EUI-64 Process or Randomly Generated

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 28
IPv6 Unicast Addresses
Dynamic Link-local Addresses

Dynamically Assigned
 Link-local address is dynamically created using
the FE80::/10 prefix and the Interface ID

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 29
IPv6 Multicast Addresses
Assigned IPv6 Multicast Addresses

 IPv6 multicast addresses have the prefix FFxx::/8

 There are two types of IPv6 multicast addresses:
• Assigned multicast
• Solicited node multicast

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 30
IPv6 Multicast Addresses
Assigned IPv6 Multicast Addresses
Two common IPv6 assigned multicast groups include:
 FF02::1 All-nodes multicast group –
• all IPv6-enabled devices join
• same effect as an IPv4 broadcast address
 FF02::2 All-routers multicast group –
• all IPv6 routers join
• a router becomes a member of this group when it is enabled as
an IPv6 router with the ipv6 unicast-routing global configuration
command
• a packet sent to this group is received and processed by all IPv6
routers on the link or network.

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 31
IPv6 Multicast Addresses
Assigned IPv6 Multicast Addresses

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 32
IPv6 Multicast Addresses
Solicited Node IPv6 Multicast Addresses
 Similar to the all-nodes multicast address, matches only the
last 24 bits of the IPv6 global unicast address of a device

 Automatically created when the global unicast or link-local

unicast addresses are assigned
 Created by combining a special FF02:0:0:0:0:FF00::/104
prefix with the right-most 24 bits of its unicast address.
Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 33
IPv6 Multicast Addresses
Solicited Node IPv6 Multicast Addresses
 The solicited node multicast address consists of two parts:
 FF02:0:0:0:0:FF00::/104 multicast prefix - first 104 bits of
the all solicited node multicast address
 Least significant 24-bits – copied from the right-most 24
bits of the global unicast or link-local unicast address of the
device

Presentation_ID © 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 34