IPv6 Technology Overview

IPv6 Features
Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is also called IP Next Generation (IPng). It is a
new version of the Internet Protocol, designed as the successor to IPv4. The
specifications and standardizations provided by it are consistent with the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF).
The difference between IPv6 and IPv4 is that an IPv4 address has 32 bits while an
IPv6 address has 128 bits.
The following sections describe the features of IPv6.
New Header Format
The IPv6 header has a new format that minimizes the header overload. The
nonessential fields and the option fields are carried in the extension headers that
are placed after the IPv6 header. The streamlined IPv6 header facilitates the router
to process the packets. The new IPv6 header is only twice as long as the IPv4
header, even though the IPv6 address is four times as long as the IPv4 address.
The IPv6 protocol is not compatible with the IPv4 protocol. A host or router must
run IPv4 and IPv6 to recognize and process the two header formats.
Figure 8-1 Comparison between IPv4 and IPv6 packet headers


Large Address Space
The IPv6 source and destination addresses are both 16 bytes, which can provide
over 3.410
38
possible combinations. In this way, the need for multiple levels of
public and private address is met. Since IPv6 provides abundant IP addresses,
address conservation, such as NAT, is not needed.
Hierarchical Address Structure
The IPv6 address has a hierarchical structure to facilitate searching routes. In
addition, the system resources occupied by the IPv6 routing table are reduced
efficiently with the router aggregation.
Stateless and Stateful Addresses Automatic Configuration
To simplify the host configuration, IPv6 supports auto configuring stateful and
stateless addresses. In the stateless address automatic configuration, hosts on a
link automatically configure an IPv6 addresses for the local link with the prefix
advertised by the router. If the router does not exist, the local link address can still
be automatically configured.
31
Total length
Identification
0
TTL
Source address (32 bits)
Padding
TOS IHL
Fragment offset F
Protocol Header checksum
Destination address (32 bits)
Options
15 7
IPv4 header
31
Version Flow label
Prototype length
0
Source address (128 bits)
Traffic class
Hop limit Next header
15 7
Destination address(128 bits)
IPv6 header
Version
Built-in Security
IPv6 takes IPSec as its standard extension header, which provides an end-to-end
security protection. This build-in security also promotes interoperability between
different IPv6 services.
Supporting QoS
A new filed, Flow Label, in the IPv6 header allows a router to identify packets in
a flow. A flow is a group of packets from a source address to a destination address.
Since IPv6 header can identify flows, IPv6 can guarantee QoS to the packet
payloads even with IPSec encryption.

Flow, a group pf packets sent from the source to the destination, should match certain
traffic classifications.
Enhanced Neighbor Discovery Mechanism
The Neighbor Discovery (ND) protocol for IPv6 is a series of Internet Control
Message Protocol for IPv6 (ICMP6) messages. The ICMP6 manages the
interaction of neighboring nodes (that is, nodes on the same link). The ND
replaces the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), ICMPv4 router Discovery, and
ICMPv4 Redirect messages with efficient multicast and unicast messages and
provides additional functionalities.
Flexible Header Extensibility
The IPv6 does not use the option field in the IPv4 header and introduces multiple
extension headers in the IPv6 header. This improves the efficiency of IPv6 and
provides fine extensibility for IP protocols. Unlike the IPv4 header, which can
only support 40 bytes of options, the size of IPv6 extension headers is constrained
only a by the size of the IPv6 packet.
IPv6 Addresses
Format of an IPv6 Address
An IPv6 address typically has two major 64-bit parts: the network prefix occupies
the higher order groups of bits and the interface ID occupies the lower ones. An
IPv6 address prefix is represented as IPv6-address/prefix-length, similar to the
IPv4 address prefixes written in the IPv4 Classless Inter-domain Routing (CIDR).
x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x
IPv6 introduces a new 128-bit addressing model. In this format, the 128 bits in the
IPv6 address space are broken down into eight groups of 16 bits, each of which
can be represented with four hexadecimal values (0 to 9, and A to F). The groups
are separated by colons. The text address then reads x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x, in which each
x represents a given hexadecimal value.
An example of typical addresses is 2031:0000:130F:0000:0000:09C0:876A:130B.
For convenience, the preceding 0s in each group can be omitted, and hence the
NOTE
address given above is written as 2031:0:130F:0:0:9C0:876A:130B. In addition, it
is acceptable to substitute a pair of colons "::" anywhere in the address to
represent two or more 16-bit groups of zeros in a string and thus compress the
length of the address. The address given above would then be written as
2031:0:130F::9C0:876A:130B.

An address may not contain more than one set of paired colons as a computer expands the
"::" with 0 to get 128 bits; hence it cannot decide on the number of zeros in each segment.
x:x:x:x:x:x:d.d.d.d
An alternative format for the address is x:x:x:x:x:x:d.d.d.d, in which x represents
hexadecimal values of the six higher-order 16-bit pieces and d represents decimal
values of the four lower-order 8-bit pieces. The latter portion is the standard IPv4
address.
This format is not recommended. It is commonly used during the configuration of
IPv6-over-IPv4 tunnels.
IPv6 Address Classification
There are three major types of addresses: unicast, anycast, and multicast.
Unicast address: identifies a single interface. It is equivalent to an IPv4
unicast address. The packets sent to a unicast address are transmitted to a
single interface identified by this address.
Anycast address: identifies a group of interfaces, which usually belong to
different nodes. The packets sent to an anycast address are transmitted to one
of the identified interfaces which are near to the source node (the distance is
measured by the routing protocol).
Multicast address: comprises a set of interfaces, which usually belong to
different nodes. It is similar to IPv4 multicast addresses. The packets sent to
a multicast address are transmitted to all the interfaces identified by this
address.
IPv6 does not include broadcast addresses. It is the multicast addresses that
provide the broadcast function.
Unicast Address Types
A unicast address controls one-to-one transmission. Similar to the unicast IPv4
address, it identifies a single interface and delivers packets to this address.
The unicast IPv6 addresses are summarized as follows.
Table 8-1 Summary of unicast IPv6 addresses
Address Type Binary Prefix IPv6 Notation
Link-local unicast address 1111111010 FE80::/10
Site-local unicast address 1111111011 FEC0::/10
Loopback address 00...1 (128 bits) ::1/128
NOTE
Address Type Binary Prefix IPv6 Notation
Unspecified address 00...0(128 bits) ::/128
Global unicast address others -

The global unicast address is equivalent to the IPv4 public network address.
It is used on links that are aggregated upwards through an organization and is
eventually provided to the ISP. The structure of this type of address enables
policies that allow aggregation of routing prefixes to limit the number of
entries in the global routing table. The address consists of a 48-bit routing
prefix managed by the provider, a 16-bit subnet ID managed by the local site,
and a 64-bit interface ID.
A link-local unicast address is used to communicate among nodes on a local
link, in the neighbor discovery protocol, and in the stateless auto
configuration process. The packets with a link-local unicast address as its
source address or destination address are not transmitted to other links. It can
be automatically configured on any interface by using the link-local prefix
FE80::/10(1111 1110 10) and the interface identifier in the IEEE EUI-64
format (a EUI-64 may be derived from an EUI-48).
A site-local unicast address is similar to an IPv4 private address, for example,
172.16.0.0/12. The prefix does not spread between routing domains and this
restricts communication with a specific domain. The packets with a site-local
unicast address as its source address or destination address are not
transmitted to other sites.
The unicast address 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 or ::1 is a loopback address. It cannot be
assigned to any interface. It performs the same function as the 127.0.0.1 in
the IPv4 - identifying a transmission sent by a node, back to itself.
Unspecified address.
Interface ID of the IEEE EUI-64 Format
The 64-bit interface ID in the IPv6 address identifies a single interface on the link.
This address derives from the link layer address (MAC address for example) of
the interface. The interface ID of the IPv6 address has 64 bits, while MAC address
has 48 bits. Therefore, insert a hexadecimal number FFFE (11111111 11111110) in
the middle of the MAC address. To ensure that the interface ID is unique, set the
U/L bit (the seventh bit from the higher part) to 1. This group of numbers serves
as the interface ID of the EUI-64 format.
Figure 8-2 Translation process from MAC address to the EUI-64 address


0000000 00010010 00110100 00000000 10101011 11001101
00000000 00010010 00110100 1111111111111110 00000000 1010101111001101
0012:3400:ABCD
00000010 00010010 00110100 11111111 11111110 00000000 10101011 11001101
0212:34FF:FE00:ABCD
MAC:
Binary:
Insert FFFE :
Set U/L bit::
EUI-64: