16

IPv6

16.1 Overview

IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6), is designed to enhance IP address size and features. The increase in IPv6 address size to 128 bits (from the 32-bit IPv4 address) allows up to 3.4 x 1038 IP addresses.

See Appendix G on page 305 for more information on IPv6.

16.1.1What You Need to Know

IPv6 Addressing

The 128-bit IPv6 address is written as eight 16-bit hexadecimal blocks separated by colons (:). This is an example IPv6 address 2001:0db8:1a2b:0015:0000:0000:1a2f:0000.

IPv6 addresses can be abbreviated in two ways:

Leading zeros in a block can be omitted. So 2001:0db8:1a2b:0015:0000:0000:1a2f:0000 can be written as 2001:db8:1a2b:15:0:0:1a2f:0.

Any number of consecutive blocks of zeros can be replaced by a double colon. A double colon can only appear once in an IPv6 address. So 2001:0db8:0000:0000:1a2f:0000:0000:0015 can be written as 2001:0db8::1a2f:0000:0000:0015, 2001:0db8:0000:0000:1a2f::0015, 2001:db8::1a2f:0:0:15 or 2001:db8:0:0:1a2f::15.

IPv6 Prefix and Prefix Length

Similar to an IPv4 subnet mask, IPv6 uses an address prefix to represent the network address. An IPv6 prefix length specifies how many most significant bits (start from the left) in the address compose the network address. The prefix length is written as “/x” where x is a number. For example,

2001:db8:1a2b:15::1a2f:0/32

means that the first 32 bits (2001:db8) is the subnet prefix.

Stateless Autoconfiguration

With stateless autoconfiguration in IPv6, addresses can be uniquely and automatically generated. Unlike DHCPv6 (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol version six) which is used in IPv6 stateful autoconfiguration, the owner and status of addresses don’t need to be maintained by a DHCP server. Every IPv6 device is able to generate its own and unique IP address automatically when IPv6 is initiated on its interface. It combines the prefix and the interface ID (generated from its own Ethernet MAC address) to form a complete IPv6 address.

 

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NBG4615 User’s Guide