IPv6 Address Planning

IPv6 Workshop
Manchester
September 2013

Kateel Vijayananda
kvijayan@cisco.com
Wim Verrydt
wverrydt@cisco.com

Copyrights
This slideset is the ownership of the 6DEPLOY project
via its partners
The Powerpoint version of this material may be
reused and modified only with written
authorization
Using any part of this material is allowed if credit is
given to 6DEPLOY
The PDF files are available from www.6deploy.eu
Looking for a contact ?
Mail to: martin.potts@martel-consulting.ch
Or: bernard.tuy@renater.fr

Contents
1. IPv6 Subnetting: Step by Step
2. Recommendations
3. Address Planning Example

Introduction
Preparing an IPv6 addressing plan is not a
trivial task
Needs timely planning
All remote network points and existing
topologies need to be considered
Look at your IPv4 Addressing Plan
If you dont have one, build one!
But, keep in mind:
Aggregation = YES
Conservation = NO

IPv4 subnetting concepts to

FORGET!
Why do we perform subnetting?
IPv4: conserve address space
IPv6: planning and optimization for
routing or security
VLSM vs SLSM theres no point to do
VLSM in IPv6
Subnets vs hosts number of hosts is
irrelevant in v6
Therell rarely be a need to expand a /64
subnet!

The generic IPv6 subnetting

problem
For a given IPv6 prefix P and prefix length L
List all the sub-prefixes of length L therein
Break P into N subnets
Repeat for each sub-prefix as required

Generic IPv6 subnetting procedure

Derived from total number of
desired subnets
Range of hexits that define each
individual subnet

The difference between each

subnetID
The individual
subnets

Subnetting Example

An ISP with operations in 10 cities just got

a 2001:db8:: /32 allocation from its RIR.
Subnet this prefix equally between the 10
cities.

Subnetting example: analysis

Number of subnets: N = 10
Subnet bits required (s): 2s 10 , sb = 4 (to
the nearest integer)
Thus, to subnet 2001:db8::/32 to cover 10
subnets:
Well need to use 4 bits
Those 4 bits give us 24 = 16 subnets (weve 6
spare subnets)
Prefix length of each subnet is /36 (i.e 32 + 4 =
36)
We calculate
Number of interesting hexits = sb/4 = 1
Block:

Subnetting example: analysis

First subnetID
[Decimal]: a1= 4096(1-1) = 0 (0x0) | from an=(n1)d
First subnet: 2001:db8:0000::/36

Last subnetID
[Decimal]: a16 = 4096(16-1) = 61440 (0xf000)
[Hex]: a10= 1000(10-1) = 1000(f) = 0xf000
Last subnet: 2001:db8:f000::/36

Verify your answer using subnet tools

e.g. sipcalc 2001:db8::/32 v6split=36

Subnetting subnets using sipcalc

sipcalc 2001:db8::/32 v6split=36 | grep Network
Network
- 2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:1000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:2000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:3000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:4000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:5000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:6000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:7000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:8000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:9000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:a000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:b000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:c000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:d000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:e000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Network
- 2001:0db8:f000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 -

Recommendations for planning

Ensure that all prefixes fall on nibble
boundaries
Plan a hierarchical scheme to allow for
aggregation
Site: any logical L3 aggregation point
(POP, building, floor)
Region: a collection of sites
Autonomous System
Use same prefix lengths for all prefixes of
the same level (SLSM)

Global IPv6 address hierarchy

Conceptual view of an ISP

network

Estimating the needs of SITEs

Select your largest SITE
Proceed as follows
Estimate the number of end-networks in it
now
Adjust for growth in 5 years
Round to nearest nibble boundary
(maxSITEsize)
2^(4n) = 16, 256, 4096, 65535,

About nibble boundaries

Try to align allocation units to nibble boundaries
Round up your estimates to 2n where n is a
multiple of 4
[16, 256, 4096, 65536 etc]
Ensure your prefixes fall on the following nibbles:
/12, /16, /20, /24, /28, /32, /36, /40, /44, /
48, /52, /56, /60, /64
Working with nibble boundaries
Greatly simplifies address planning
Provides room for expansion at each level of the
network hierarchy

Nibble boundary alignment

Consider the range of addresses for
example
2001:db8:3c00::/40

[first] 2001:db8:3c00:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000
[last] 2001:db8:3cff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
Easy to see that differentiating hexits range from 0-f

Consider the range of addresses for

2001:df8:3c00::/42
[first] 2001:db8:3c00:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000
[last] 2001:db8:3c3f:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff

Youll have to calculate the differentiating

hexits

Finding the total number of end

prefixes required
End-prefix is the prefix given to a network
that connects to each site e.g customer
network
Estimate the number of #SITEs in your largest
region (round to nibble boundary)
Calculate the number of end-site prefixes:
N = #regions x #SITEs x maxSITEsize

Calculating your allocation size

Calculate number of subnet bits required
to give us N prefixes:

Allocation size (what you request from the

RIR) is
48 s [if assigning /48s per end-site]
52 s [if assigning /52s per end-site]

IPv6 address planning Example

An ISP has operations in 10 provinces.
The largest province has 50 POPs, the
largest of which has about 2700
customers.
Estimate the IPv6 addressing needs of
this ISP.

AP example analysis and solution

We know
Number of regions: #regions = 10 [round to 16]
Number of sites: #SITEs = 50 [round up to 256]
maxSITEsize = 2700 [round up to 4096]

We calculate
Total number of end-network prefixes required is
N
N=16 x 256 x 4096 = 16,777,216
Number of subnet bits required:
s=log16,777,216/log2 = 24.

AP example analysis and solution

Allocation size:
48 24 = 24 [Assuming /48s to end-sites]
52 24 = 28 [Assuming /52s to end-sites]

Thus the ISP needs to request a /24 or /

28 from its service region RIR

IPv6 address planning a few clarifications

/32 for LIRs is just the minimum size

according to most RIR policies

If you can show that you need more, you
usually can get more!
Do NOT start with /32 [or /48] and try to
fit in.
INSTEAD analyse your needs and apply
based on them.

IPv6 address planning a few clarifications

RFCs recommend /64 for all subnets

Even p2p and loopbacks

DO allocate a /64 for all links but,
DO configure what makes operational
sense
(e.g /127 for p2p and /128 for loopbacks)

Understand what breaks if you use longer

prefix lengths

Conclusion
While performing IPv6 address
planning, forget conservation
Paradigm change: moving to SLSM
Tools like sipcalc are useful
Its fairly quick to reach some
numbers if you have all the details
available

Questions
32