IPV6

Internet Protocol Version 6

IPv6

IPv6 solutions to IPv4 disadvantages IPv6 addressing IPv6 header DNS support for IPv6 Core protocols of IPv6 IPv6 Neighbor Discovery Difference between IPv4 and IPv6

Introduction

Day by day infrastructure of the Internet is expanding and we can even enjoy the service of the Internet in villages and remote areas. At first the Internet protocol addressing was designed on 32 bit and this scheme IP version called IPv4. IPv4 addressing is like 203.128.76.189. decimal is used to make the IPv4 addresses more palatable for humans and a 32-bit address becomes 4 decimal numbers separated by the period (.) character.

Disadvantages of IPv4
Limited address space Flat routing Infrastructure Configuration Security Quality of services (QoS) Mobility

IPv6 solutions to IPv4 disadvantages Huge address space Hierarchical routing infrastructure Automatic configuration Built in security Better support for QoS Built in Mobility

Larger Address Space

IPv4 = 32 bits

IPv6 = 128 bits IPv4

32

bits or 4 bytes long

200, 000,000 possible addressable nodes

4,

Contd

Every device on the Internet must be assigned an IP address in order to communicate with other devices. With the ever-increasing number of new devices being connected to the Internet, the need arose for more addresses than IPv4 is able to accommodate. IPv6 uses a 128-bit address, allowing 2128, or approximately3.41038 addresses, or more than 7.91028 times as many as IPv4, which uses 32-bit addresses.

Larger address space enables Address Aggregation

Customer no 1 ISP 2001:0410:0001:/48 Customer no 2 2001:0410:0002:/48

Only announces the /32 prefix

2001:0410::/32 IPv6 Internet 2001::/16

Aggregation of prefixes announced in the global routing table. Efficient and scalable routing Improved bandwidth and functionality for user traffic.

IPv6 address space

/23
2001 0410

/32

/48

/64 Interface ID

Registry
ISP prefix

Site prefix
LAN prefix

Bootstrap process - RFC2450

128-bit address space 128 bits were chosen to allow multiple levels of hierarchy and flexibility in designing hierarchical addressing and routing Global unicast and anycast addresses are defined by a global routing prefix, a subnet ID and an interface ID.

IPv6 Address Representation

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x, where x is a 16-bit hexadecimal field Leading zeros in a field are optional
-

2031:0:130F:0:0:9C0:876A:130B Successive fields of 0 can be represented as ::, but only once per address Eg. 2031:0:130F:0000:0000:9C0:876A:130B 2031:0:130F::0:9C0:876A:130B

IPv6 Prefixes

Prefix is the part of the address where the bits have fixed values or are the bits of route or subnet identifier IPv6 subnets or routes always uses address/prefix length like CIDR notation Examples

3FFE:FFFF:2A:41CD::/64 is a subnet identifier 3FFE:FFFF:2A::/48 is a route FF::/8 is an address range

Types of IPv6 address

Unicast

Address of a single interface One-to-One delivery to single interface Address of a set of interfaces One-to-Many delivery to all interfaces in a set Address of a set of interfaces One-to-One-of-many delivery to single interface in the set is the closest

Multicast

Anycast

No more broadcast address

Unicast IPv6 Addresses

Global addresses

Used on IPv6 Internet Equivalent to IPv4 public addresses Unique-local addresses

Local-Use Addresses

Equivalent to IPv4 private addresses Always begin with FC00 Equivalent to APIPA addresses Always begin with FE80

Link-local addresses

IPv6 Interface Identifiers

Based on

Derived from the MAC address of the network adapter to which the address is assigned Randomly generated to provide IPv4equivalent anonymity Assigned during a Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) connection Assigned during DHCP configuration

IPv6 Header
IPv4 Header
Versio n IHL Type of Service Total Length
Fragment Offset Payload Length Time to Live Protocol Header Checksum Next Header Hop Limit
Version

IPv6 Header
Traffic Class Flow Label

Identification

Flags

Source Address Destination Address

Options Padding

Source Address

Legend

- fields name kept from IPv4 to IPv6 - fields not kept in IPv6

Destination Address

- Name & position changed in IPv6

- New field in IPv6

Version (4 bits) The constant 6 (bit sequence 0110). Traffic Class (8 bits) The bits of this field hold two values. The 6 most-significant bits are used for differentiated services, which is used to classify packets.The remaining two bits are used for ECN;priority values subdivide into ranges: traffic where the source provides congestion control and non-congestion control traffic. Flow Label (20 bits) Originally created for giving real-time applications special service.The flow label when set to a non-zero value now serves as a hint to routers and switches with multiple outbound paths that these packets should stay on the same path so that they will not be reordered. It has further been suggested that the flow label be used to help detect spoofed packets. Payload Length (16 bits) The size of the payload in octets, including any extension headers. The length is set to zero when a Hop-by-Hop extension header carries a Jumbo Payload option.

Next Header (8 bits) Specifies the type of the next header. This field usually specifies the transport layer protocol used by a packet's payload. When extension headers are present in the packet this field indicates which extension header follows. The values are shared with those used for the IPv4 protocol field, as both fields have the same function (see List of IP protocol numbers). Hop Limit (8 bits) Replaces the time to live field of IPv4. This value is decremented by one at each intermediate node visited by the packet. When the counter reaches 0 the packet is discarded. Source Address (128 bits) The IPv6 address of the sending node. Destination Address (128 bits) The IPv6 address of the destination node(s).

IPv6 Extension Header Types

Routing Header Fragmentation Header Hop-by-Hop options Header Destinations Options Header Authentication Header Encrypted Security Payload Header

DNS Support for IPv6

AAAA resource records for name-to-address resolutions PRT resource records in the IP6. ARPA reverse domain for address-to-name resolutions

Core Protocols of IPv6

IPv6

Replacement for IPv4 Replacement for ICMP for IPv4 Replacement for ARP, Redirect and Router Discovery for IPv4 Replacement for IGMPv2 for IPv4

ICMPv6

Neighbor Discovery

Multicast Listened Discovery

IPv6 Neighbor Discovery

Messages

Neighbor Solicitation Neighbor Advertisement Router Solicitation Router Advertisement Redirect Address Resolution Duplicate address detection Router Discovery Redirect Neighbor unreachability detection

Processes

IPv6 Auto-Configuration

Stateless (RFC2462)
Host

autonomously configures its own LinkLocal address Router solicitation are sent by booting nodes to request RAs for configuring the interfaces.

RA indicates SUBNET PREFIX

SUBNET PREFIX + MAC ADDRESS

Stateful
DHCPv6

(under definition at IETF)

Renumbering
Hosts renumbering is done by modifying the RA to announce the old prefix with a short lifetime and the new prefix. Router renumbering protocol (RFC 2894), to allow domain-interior routers to learn of prefix introduction / withdrawal
SUBNET PREFIX + MAC ADDRESS

At boot time, an IPv6 host build a Link-Local address, then its global IPv6 address(es) from RA

Standard Stateless autoconfiguration

Stage 1: The PC sends a router solicitation to request a prefix for stateless autoconfiguration. Stage 2: The router replies with a router advertisement.

Feature Address Length Header size IPSec support QoS support 32 bits

IPv4

IPv6 128 bits 40 bytes Required Better

20-60-bytes Optional Some

Fragmentation
Checksum in header

Hosts & routers

Yes

Hosts only
No

Options in header
Link layer address resolution

Yes
ARP (broadcast)

No
Multicast Neighbor Discovery Messages

Feature Multicast membership Router Discovery Uses broadcast? Configuration DNS Name Queries DNS reverse Queries IGMP

IPv4

IPv6 Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) Required No Automatic, DHCP Uses AAAA records Uses IP6 ARPA

Optional Yes Manual, DHCP Uses A record Uses IN_ADDr ARPA