IPv6 Introduction

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Introduction to IPv6
IPv4 has stood the test of time a tribute to its initial
design
Proven to be robust
Easily implemented
Interoperable

The initial design did not anticipate todays Internet scale

and size
Exhausting IPv4 address space
Large routing tables
Simpler management of IPv4 addresses
Security at IP level
QoS requirements

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Introduction
To address this and other concerns
IETF developed a suite of protocols
and standards
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)

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Introduction
Design of IPv6 is intentionally targeted for
minimal impact on upper and lower layer
protocols

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb726993.aspx INFT3007
 IPv6 Packets and Data Link
Layer
A link layer frame containing an IPv6 packet
consists of the following structure:
Link Layer Header and Trailer The

encapsulation placed on the IPv6 packet at the

link layer.

IPv6 Header The IPv6 header.

Payload The payload of the IPv6 packet. INFT3007
IPv6 Features
New header format
Large address space
Efficient and hierarchical addressing and
routing infrastructure
Stateless and stateful address configuration
Built-in security
Better support for prioritized delivery
New protocol for neighboring node interaction
Extensibility

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New Header Format
The IPv6 header keeps header overhead to a
minimum.
Moves both non-essential fields and optional fields to
extension headers that are placed after the IPv6
header.
The streamlined IPv6 header is more efficiently
processed at intermediate routers.
IPv4 headers and IPv6 headers are not interoperable.
The new IPv6 header is only twice as large as the
IPv4 header even though the number of bits in IPv6
addresses is four times larger than IPv4 addresses.

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Large Address Space
128 bit address space
Sufficient for growth in the
foreseeable future
Techniques such as NAT/PAT for
address preservation is not needed

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 Efficient and hierarchical addressing
and routing infrastructure
IPv6 global addresses used on the
IPv6 portion of the Internet are
designed to create an efficient,
hierarchical, and summarizable
routing infrastructure that is based
on the common occurrence of
multiple levels of Internet service
providers.

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Stateless and stateful
address configuration
IPv6 supports both stateful address
configuration, such as address
configuration in the presence of a
DHCP server, and stateless
address configuration (address
configuration in the absence of a
DHCP server).

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Built-in security
Support for IPsec is an IPv6
protocol suite requirement

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Better Support for
Prioritized Delivery
New fields in the IPv6 header define
how traffic is handled and identified.

Because the traffic is identified in

the IPv6 header, support for
prioritized delivery can be achieved
even when the packet payload is
encrypted with IPsec.

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New Protocol for Neighboring
Node Interaction
The Neighbor Discovery protocol manage
the interaction of neighboring nodes (nodes
on the same link).

Neighbor Discovery replaces the broadcast-

based Address Resolution Protocol (ARP),
ICMPv4 Router Discovery, and ICMPv4
Redirect messages with efficient multicast
and unicast Neighbor Discovery messages.

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Extensibility
IPv6 can easily be extended for
new features by adding extension
headers after the IPv6 header.

Unlike options in the IPv4 header,

which can only support 40 bytes of
options, the size of IPv6 extension
headers is only constrained by the
size of the IPv6 packet.
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 IPv4 vs IPv6
IPv4 IPv6

Source and destination addresses are 32 bits (4 Source and destination addresses are 128 bits (16

bytes) in length. bytes) in length.

IP sec support is optional. IP sec support is required.

No identification of packet flow for QoS handling by P acket flow identification for QoS handling by

routers is present within the IP v4 header. routers is included in the IP v6 header using the

Flow Label field

Fragmentation is done by both routers and the Fragmentation is not done by routers, only by the

sending host. sending host.

Header includes a checksum. Header does not include a checksum.

Header includes options. All optional data is moved to IP v6 extension

headers.

Address Resolution P rotocol (ARP ) uses broadcast ARP Request frames are replaced with multicast

ARP Request frames to resolve an IP v4 address to Neighbor Solicitation messages.

a link layer address.

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IPv4 vs IPv6

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References
Windows Server 2008 White Paper
Introduction to IPv6

Downloadable via -
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb72
6944.
aspx

http://download.microsoft.com
/download/e/9/b/e9bd20d3-cc8d-4162-aa60-3aa
3abc2b2e9/IPv6.
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References (contd.)
Understanding IPv6, 3rd Edition by
Joseph Davies

Downloadable as a free e-book

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