Internet Protocol (IP) version 6
Internet Protocol (IP) version 6 (IPv6 or IPng) is the next generation of IP and has been designed to be an evolutionary step from IP version 4 (IPv4).
While IPv4 has allowed the development of a global Internet, it is not capable of carrying much farther into the future because of two fundamental factors: limited address space and routing complexity. The IPv4 32-bit addresses do not provide enough flexibility for global Internet routing. The deployment of Classless InterDomain Routing (CIDR) has extended the lifetime of IPv4 routing by a number of years, but the effort to better manage the routing will continue. Even if IPv4 routing could be scaled up, the Internet will eventually run out of network numbers.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) recognized that IPv4 would not be able to support the phenomenal growth of the Internet, so the IETF IPng working group was formed. Of the proposals that were made, Simple Internet Protocol Plus (SIPP) was chosen as an evolutionary step in the development of IP. This was renamed to IPng, and RFC1883 was finalized in December of 1995.
IPv6 extends the maximum number of Internet addresses to handle the ever increasing Internet user population. As an evolutionary change from IPv4, IPv6 has the advantage of allowing the new and the old to coexist on the same network. This coexistence enables an orderly migration from IPv4 (32 bit addressing) to IPv6 (128 bit addressing) on an operational network.
This overview is intended to give the reader a general understanding of the IPng protocol. For detailed information, please see RFCs 2460, 2373, 2465, 1886, 2461, 2462, and 2553.
Security provides security information on the TCP/IP suite of protocols, including IPv6. For details about IP Security, versions 4 and 6, see Internet Protocol security.
IPv6 autoconfiguration
The primary mechanisms available that enable a node to start up and communicate with other nodes over an IPv4 network are hard-coding, BOOTP, and DHCP
IPv6 introduces the concept of scope to IP addresses, one of which is link-local. This allows a host to construct a valid address from the predefined link-local prefix and its local identifier. This local identifier is typically derived from the medium access control (MAC) address of the interface to be configured. Using this address, the node can communicate with other hosts on the same subnet and, for a fully-isolated subnet, might not need any other address configuration.
IPv6 meaningful addresses
With IPv4, the only generally recognizable meaning in addresses are broadcast (typically all 1s or all 0s), and classes (for example, a class D is multicast). With IPv6, the prefix can be quickly examined to determine scope (for example, link-local), multicast versus unicast, and a mechanism of assignment (provider-based or geography-based).
Routing information might be explicitly loaded into the upper bits of addresses as well, but this has not yet been finalized by the IETF (for provider-based addresses, routing information is implicitly present in the address).
IPv6 duplicate address detection
When an interface is initialized or reinitialized, it uses autoconfiguration to tentatively associate a link-local address with that interface (the address is not yet assigned to that interface in the traditional sense). At this point, the interface joins the all-nodes and solicited-nodes multicast groups, and sends a neighbor discovery message to these groups. By using the multicast address, the node can determine whether that particular link-local address has been previously assigned, and choose an alternate address.
This eliminates accidentally assigning the same address to two different interfaces on the same link. (It is still possible to create duplicate global-scope addresses for nodes that are not on the same link.)
Neighbor discovery/stateless address autoconfiguration
Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) for IPv6 is used by nodes (hosts and routers) to determine the link-layer addresses for neighbors known to reside on attached links, and maintain per-destination routing tables for active connections. IPv6 defines both a stateful and a stateless address autoconfiguration mechanism. Stateless autoconfiguration requires no manual configuration of hosts; minimal, if any, configuration of routers; and no additional servers.
Hosts also use NDP to find neighboring routers that are willing to forward packets on their behalf and detect changed link-layer addresses. NDP uses the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Version 6 with its own unique message types. In general terms, the IPv6 Neighbor Discovery protocol corresponds to a combination of the IPv4 Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), ICMP Router Discovery (RDISC), and ICMP Redirect (ICMPv4), but with many improvements over these IPv4 protocols.
The stateless mechanism allows a host to generate its own addresses using a combination of locally available information and information advertised by routers. Routers advertise prefixes that identify the subnets associated with a link, while hosts generate an interface token that uniquely identifies an interface on a subnet. An address is formed by combining the two. In the absence of routers, a host can only generate link-local addresses. However, link-local addresses are sufficient for allowing communication among nodes attached to the same link.