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IPv6 Address

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33 views6 pages

IPv6 Address

Uploaded by

blackneilarmstrong
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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IPv6 Address

You already know that IPv4 is running out of addresses. That is why you need to learn about IPv6.

IPv6 is designed to be the successor to IPv4. IPv6 has a larger 128-bit address space, providing 340 undecillion (i.e., 340
followed by 36 zeroes) possible addresses. However, IPv6 is more than just larger addresses.

When the IETF began its development of a successor to IPv4, it used this opportunity to fix the limitations of IPv4 and
include enhancements. One example is Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6), which includes address
resolution and address autoconfiguration not found in ICMP for IPv4 (ICMPv4).

The depletion of IPv4 address space has been the motivating factor for moving to IPv6. As Africa, Asia and other areas of
the world become more connected to the internet, there are not enough IPv4 addresses to accommodate this growth.
As shown in the figure, four out of the five RIRs have run out of IPv4 addresses.

RIR IPv4 Exhaustion Dates

IPv4 has a theoretical maximum of 4.3 billion addresses. Private addresses in combination with Network Address
Translation (NAT) have been instrumental in slowing the depletion of IPv4 address space. However, NAT is problematic
for many applications, creates latency, and has limitations that severely impede peer-to-peer communications.

With the ever-increasing number of mobile devices, mobile providers have been leading the way with the transition to
IPv6. The top two mobile providers in the United States report that over 90% of their traffic is over IPv6.

Most top ISPs and content providers such as YouTube, Facebook, and NetFlix, have also made the transition. Many
companies like Microsoft, Facebook, and LinkedIn are transitioning to IPv6-only internally. In 2018, broadband ISP
Comcast reported a deployment of over 65% and British Sky Broadcasting over 86%.

Internet of Things

The internet of today is significantly different than the internet of past decades. The internet of today is more than
email, web pages, and file transfers between computers. The evolving internet is becoming an Internet of Things (IoT).
No longer will the only devices accessing the internet be computers, tablets, and smartphones. The sensor-equipped,
internet-ready devices of tomorrow will include everything from automobiles and biomedical devices, to household
appliances and natural ecosystems.
With an increasing internet population, a limited IPv4 address space, issues with NAT and the IoT, the time has come to
begin the transition to IPv6.

IPv4 and IPv6 Coexistence

There is no specific date to move to IPv6. Both IPv4 and IPv6 will coexist in the near future and the transition will take
several years. The IETF has created various protocols and tools to help network administrators migrate their networks to
IPv6. The migration techniques can be divided into three categories:

Dual stack

Dual stack allows IPv4 and IPv6 to coexist on the same network segment. Dual stack devices run both IPv4 and IPv6
protocol stacks simultaneously. Known as native IPv6, this means the customer network has an IPv6 connection to their
ISP and is able to access content found on the internet over IPv6.

Tunneling

Tunneling is a method of transporting an IPv6 packet over an IPv4 network. The IPv6 packet is encapsulated inside an
IPv4 packet, similar to other types of data.

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 an IPv4 packet is
translated to an IPv6 packet.
The physcial network topology shows on IPv6-only network on the left communication with an IPv4-only network on the
right through a NAT64 router.

IPv6 Addressing Formats


The first step to learning about IPv6 in networks is to understand the way an IPv6 address is written and formatted. IPv6
addresses are much larger than IPv4 addresses, which is why we are unlikely to run out of them.

IPv6 addresses are 128 bits in length and written as a string of hexadecimal values. Every four bits is represented by a
single hexadecimal digit; for a total of 32 hexadecimal values, as shown in the figure. IPv6 addresses are not case-
sensitive and can be written in either lowercase or uppercase.

16-bit Segments or Hextets

Preferred Format

The previous figure also shows that the preferred format for writing an IPv6 address is x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x, with each “x”
consisting of four hexadecimal values. The term octet refers to the eight bits of an IPv4 address. In IPv6, a hextet is the
unofficial term used to refer to a segment of 16 bits, or four hexadecimal values. Each “x” is a single hextet which is 16
bits or four hexadecimal digits.

Preferred format means that you write IPv6 address using all 32 hexadecimal digits. It does not necessarily mean that it
is the ideal method for representing the IPv6 address. In this module, you will see two rules that help to reduce the
number of digits needed to represent an IPv6 address.
These are examples of IPv6 addresses in the preferred format.

Rule 1 – Omit Leading Zeros


Rule 2- Double Colon

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