Technology - IPv6 1 - Addressing

Synopsis

This report introduces IPv6’s most important feature, the 128 bit address system which vastly expands upon the 32 bit system of today’s IPv4-based Internet. The public global unicast addresses, private address ranges, multicast addressing and the details of how users will typically be allocated a ‘/48’ prefix, enabling them to create 65,536 LANs, each with an effectively unlimited number of computers is also discussed.

Table of Contents

• 1. Synopsis
• 2. Introduction
  • 2.1 Terminology
    • 2.1.1 Node
    • 2.1.2 Router or gateway
    • 2.1.3 Host
    • 2.1.4 Switch
    • 2.1.5 Subnet
    • 2.1.6 Prefix
    • 2.1.7 RFC
• 3. 128 bit addressing
  • 3.1 Textual representation
    • 3.1.1 Individual IP addresses
    • 3.1.2 Subnets or prefixes
  • 3.2 Overall address space
  • 3.3 Link-scope
  • 3.4 Global-scope
  • 3.5 Unique Local-scope Addresses (ULA)
    • 3.5.1 Choosing the unique-local address range
    • 3.5.2 Centrally assigned ULA addresses
  • 3.6 Site-local scope is deprecated
  • 3.7 Scopes for multicasting
• 4. Unicast and alternatives
  • 4.1 Unicast
  • 4.2 Anycast
  • 4.3 Multicast
    • 4.3.1 Multicast addresses and routing
  • 4.4 Broadcast
• 5. Global Unicast Addresses
  • 5.1 Route Aggregation
  • 5.2 Allocation of IP addresses to a customer
  • 5.3 Customer allocation of LANs
• 6. Sparseness as a form of security
• 7. Related reports

• Exhibit 1 – Assigned subnets of IPv6 addresses
• Exhibit 2 – Bit functions of IPv6 Global Unicast Addresses