Course 4 Internet Protocol version 6

(IPv6)
 What is IPv6 and why
is it important?
• IPv6 is the latest version of the Internet Protocol, which identifies devices
across the internet so they can be located
• The previous version, IPv4, uses a 32-bit addressing scheme to support 4.3
billion devices, which was thought to be enough.
• However, the growth of the internet, personal computers, smartphones and
now Internet of Things devices proves that the world needed more addresses.
• IETF recognized this more than 20 years ago!!
• In 1998 IETF created IPv6, which instead uses 128-bit addressing to support
approximately 340 trillion trillion (or 2 to the 128th power)
• Instead of the IPv4 address method of four sets of digit numbers, IPv6 uses
eight groups of four hexadecimal digits, separated by colons.
• despite its efficiency and security advantages, its adoption is still slow
Why IPv6 and
not IPv5???

• version number 5 was used to refer to an

experimental protocol called the Internet
Stream Protocol, which was never widely
deployed.
 RFC 2460 – RFC 3697 – RFC 4294 –
Basic RFC 3315 – Flow Label Node
Protocol DHCPv6 Specification requirement

1998 2003 2004 2006

Brief
history
2003 2004 2006

RFC 2553 – RFC 3775 – RFC 4291 –

Basic Socket Mobile IPv6 Address
API architecture
(revision)
 • A larger address space, sufficient for at least the next 30 years
• Globally unique and hierarchical addressing, based on prefixes rather
than address classes, to keep routing tables small and backbone routing
efficient
• A mechanism for the auto-configuration of network interfaces
What are • Support for encapsulation of itself and other protocols

the
• Class of service that distinguishes types of data
• Improved multicast routing support (in preference to broadcasting)

benefits • Built-in authentication and encryption

• Transition methods to migrate from IPv4

of IPv6? • Compatibility methods to coexist and communicate with IPv4

• Can handle packets more efficiently
• IPv6 can improve performance and increase security.
• It enables internet service providers to reduce the size of their routing
tables by making them more hierarchical.
 • The adoption of IPv6 has been delayed in part due to NAT, which takes
private IP addresses and turns them into public IP addresses.
• Without NAT, large corporations with thousands or tens of thousands
of computers would consume enormous quantities of public IPv4
Network addresses if they wanted to communicate with the outside world.
• With NAT, thousands of privately addressed computers can be
address presented to the public internet by a NAT machine such as a firewall or
router.

translatio • The way NAT works is when a corporate computer with a private IP
address sends a packet to a public IP address outside the corporate

n (NAT)
network, it first goes to the NAT device.
• The NAT notes the packet’s source and destination addresses in a
translation table.
and IPv6 • The NAT changes the source address of the packet to the public-facing
address of the NAT device and sends it along to the external
destination.
• When a packet replies, the NAT translates the destination address to
the private IP address of the computer that initiated the
communication.
 • Carrier networks and Internet service providers (ISP)
have been the first group to start deploying IPv6 on
their networks, with mobile networks leading the
charge.
Who is • For example, T-Mobile USA has more than 90% of its
deploying traffic going over IPv6 (Sept. 2018).
• Enterprises are in the deployment phase, with a
IPv6? little under one-fourth of enterprises advertising
IPv6 prefixes, according to the Internet Society’s
“State of IPv6 Deployment 2017” report.
• Complexity, costs and time needed to complete are
all reasons given.
• Some projects have been delayed due to software
compatibility.
 • the Internet Society said prices will drop after IPv6
deployment passes the 50% mark.
• 2018: according to Google, the world has 20% to 22%
IPv6 adoption, but in the U.S. it’s about 32%.
When will • as the price of IPv4 addresses begin to drop, the Internet
Society suggests that enterprises sell off their existing
more IPv4 addresses to help fund IPv6 deployment.

deployme
• MIT concluded that 8 million of its IPv4 addresses were
“excess” and could be sold without impacting current or
future needs since it also holds 20 nonillion IPv6
nts occur? addresses (a nonillion is the numeral one followed by 30
zeroes)
• as more deployments occur, more companies will start
charging for the use of IPv4 addresses, while providing
IPv6 services for free.
 • most of the world “ran out” of new IPv4
addresses between 2011 and 2018
• we won’t completely be out of them as IPv4
addresses get sold and re-used.
When will • any leftover addresses will be used for IPv6
IPv4 be transitions.
• there’s no official switch-off date, so people
“shut shouldn’t be worried that their internet access
off”? will suddenly go away one day.
• as more networks transition, more content sites
support IPv6 and more end users upgrade their
equipment for IPv6 capabilities, the world will
slowly move away from IPv4.
 IPv6
datagram
 • Version 4-bit IP version number: 6.
• Traffic class 8-bit traffic class value.
• Flow label 20-bit field.
• Payload length The length of the packet in bytes
(excluding this header) encoded as a 16-bit
unsigned integer.
• Next header Indicates the type of header
immediately following the basic IP header. It can
indicate an IP option header or an upper layer
protocol.
• Hop limit similar to IPv4 TTL field but it is now
measured in hops and not seconds.
• Source address A 128-bit address.
• Destination address A 128-bit address.

The IPv6 header

format
Extension header format
Extension header format: 6
types
1. Hop-by-hop option: is used when the source needs to pass information to all routers visited by
the datagram
2. Destination option: is used when the source needs to pass information to the destination only;
intermediate routers are not permitted access to this information.
3. Source routing: combines the concepts of the strict source route and the loose source route
options of IPv4
4. Fragmentation: is the same as that in IPv4, only the place where fragmentation occurs differs.
5. Authentication: has a dual purpose: it validates the message sender and ensures the integrity
of data
6. Encrypted security payload: is an extension that provides confidentiality and guards against
eavesdropping.
Hexadecim
al Number
System
 • The IPv6 address model is specified in RFC 4291 – IP Version 6
Addressing Architecture.
• IPv6 uses a 128-bit address instead of the 32-bit address of IPv4.
• The IPv6 address provides flexibility and scalability:
• It allows multilevel subnetting and allocation from a global

IPv6 backbone to an individual subnet within an organization.

• It improves multicast scalability and efficiency through scope
constraints.
addressin • It adds a new address for server node clusters, where one
server can respond to a request to a group of nodes.
g • The large IPv6 address space is organized into a hierarchical
structure to reduce the size of backbone routing tables.
• IPv6 addresses are represented in the form of eight hexadecimal
numbers divided by colons.
eg: FE80:0000:0000:0000:0001:0800:23E7:F5DB or simplified
FE80:0:0:0:1:800:23E7:F5DB or more simplified
FE80::1:800:23E7:F5DB
IPv6 addresses
• IPv6 allows three types of addresses:
• Unicast: an identifier for a single interface: a
packet sent to a unicast address is delivered
to the interface identified by that address.
• Anycast: an identifier for a set of interfaces
(typically belonging to different nodes): a
packet sent to an anycast address is delivered
to one of the interfaces identified by that
address (the “nearest” one, according to the
routing protocols’ measure of distance).
• Multicast: an identifier for a set of interfaces
(typically belonging to different nodes): a
packet sent to a multicast address is delivered
to all interfaces identified by that address.
 • In IPv4, a host that wants to communicate with another host on the
network needs to have an IP address acquired either by means of
DHCP or by manual configuration.
• As soon as a host is equipped with some valid IP address, it can
speak to any host on the subnet.
• To communicate on layer-3, a host must also know the IP address of
IPv6 - the other host.
• Communication on a link, is established by means of hardware
Communic embedded MAC Addresses.

ation • To know the MAC address of a host whose IP address is known, a

host sends ARP broadcast and in return, the intended host sends
back its MAC address.
• In IPv6, there are no broadcast mechanisms.
• It is not a must for an IPv6 enabled host to obtain an IP address
from DHCP or manually configured, but it can auto-configure its own
IP.
• ARP has been replaced by ICMPv6 Neighbor Discovery Protocol.
 • A host in IPv6 network is capable of auto-
configuring itself with a unique link-local
address.
• As soon as host gets an IPv6 address, it joins a
Neighbor number of multicast groups.
Discovery • All communications related to that segment
take place on those multicast addresses only.
Protocol • A host goes through a series of states in IPv6:
• Neighbor Solicitation
• DAD (Duplicate Address Detection)
• Neighbor Advertisement
 • Once a host is done with the configuration of its
Neighbor IPv6 addresses, it does the following things:
Discovery • Router Solicitation
• Router Advertisement
Protocol • Redirect
IPv6 Subnetting
• IPv6 addresses use 128 bits to represent an address which includes bits to be used for subnetting.
• The second half of the address (least significant 64 bits) is always used for hosts only.
• Therefore, there is no compromise if we subnet the network.
• 16 bits of subnet is equivalent to IPv4’s Class B Network.
• Using these subnet bits, an organization can have another 65 thousands of subnets which is by far, more
than enough.
• Thus routing prefix is /64 and host portion is 64 bits.
• We can further subnet the network beyond 16 bits of Subnet ID, by borrowing host bits
• It is recommended that 64 bits should always be used for hosts addresses because auto-configuration
requires 64 bits.
• IPv6 subnetting works on the same concept as Variable Length Subnet Masking in IPv4.
 IPv6 -
Subnettin
g
 • Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) in IPv6 functions the
same as ICMP in IPv4.
• RFC 4443 defines an updated version of the ICMP protocol for
IPv6.
• ICMP generates error messages, such as ICMP destination
unreachable messages, and informational messages, such as
ICMP echo request and reply messages.
ICMP for • additionally, ICMP packets in IPv6 are used in the IPv6 neighbor
discovery process, path MTU discovery, and the Multicast
IPv6 Listener Discovery (MLD) protocol for IPv6.
• MLD is used by IPv6 devices to discover multicast listeners
(nodes that want to receive multicast packets destined for
specific multicast addresses) on directly attached links.
• MLD is based on version 2 of the Internet Group Management
Protocol (IGMP) for IPv4.
• A value of 58 in the Next Header field of the basic IPv6 packet
header identifies an IPv6 ICMP packet.
 • ICMP packets in IPv6 are like a transport-layer
packet in the sense that the ICMP packet follows all
the extension headers and is the last piece of
information in the IPv6 packet.

ICMP • Within IPv6 ICMP packets, the ICMPv6 Type and

ICMPv6 Code fields identify IPv6 ICMP packet
packets in specifics, such as the ICMP message type.
• The value in the Checksum field is derived
IPv6 (computed by the sender and checked by the
receiver) from the fields in the IPv6 ICMP packet and
the IPv6 pseudoheader.
• The ICMPv6 Data field contains error or diagnostic
information relevant to IP packet processing.
IPv6 ICMP Packet Header Format
Transition from IPv4 to IPv6
• The transition from IPv4 to IPv6 cannot happen suddenly
• The transition must be smooth to prevent any problems between IPv4 and IPv6
systems
• Three strategies have been devised by the IETF to help the transition:
• Dual Stack
• Tunneling
• Header translation
 • it is recommended that all hosts, before migrating
completely to version 6, have a dual stack of
protocols;
• in other words, a station must run IPv4 and IPv6
simultaneously until all the Internet uses IPv6.
Dual • A router can be installed with both IPv4 and IPv6
addresses configured on its interfaces pointing to
Stack the network of relevant IP scheme.

strategy • To determine which version to use when sending a

packet to a destination, the source host queries the
DNS:
• If the DNS returns an IPv4 address, the source
host sends an IPv4 packet.
• If the DNS returns an IPv6 address, the source
host sends an IPv6 packet
Dual Stack Routers
 • is a strategy used when two computers using IPv6
want to communicate with each other and the
packet must pass through a region that uses IPv4.
• To pass through this region, the packet must have an
IPv4 address.

Tunneling • So the IPv6 packet is encapsulated in an IPv4 packet

when it enters the region, and it leaves its capsule
when it exits the region.
• It seems as if the IPv6 packet goes through a tunnel
at one end and emerges at the other end.
• To make it clear that the IPv4 packet is carrying an
IPv6 packet as data, the protocol value is set to 41.
Tunneling
 • two types of configured tunnels:
• Manual: configuration at both ends of the tunnel.
• Dynamic: - created automatically based on the packet
destination address and routing;
- simplify maintenance
• concerns related to the security of tunneling techniques.
• using dynamic tunnelling, it is difficult to track who is
Tunneling communicating over the transient tunnels, and the
tunnel destination endpoint is not known.
• tunnels have to be changed and monitored constantly
as the transition progresses.
• tunnels will also have to be removed when the
migration to IPv6 is completed.
• tunnels are just a transitional technique and
troubleshooting in an environment full of tunnels will
be challenging.
 • Network Address Translation – Protocol Translation (NAT-PT)
• is necessary when the majority of the Internet has moved
to IPv6 but some systems still use IPv4.
• The sender wants to use IPv6, but the receiver does not
Header understand IPv6.

Translatio
• Tunneling does not work in this situation because the
packet must be in the IPv4 format to be understood by the
receiver.
n • In this case, the header format must be totally changed
through header translation.
• The header of the IPv6 packet is converted to an IPv4
header.
• Header translation uses the mapped address to translate
an IPv6 address to an IPv4 address.
Network Address Translation – Protocol Translation
IPv6 - Routing
• routing concepts remain the same but almost all routing protocols have been redefined accordingly.
• Distance Vector Routing Protocol:
• a router running distance vector protocol advertises its connected routes and learns new routes from its
neighbors.
• the routing cost to reach a destination is calculated by means of hops between the source and destination.
• a router generally relies on its neighbor for best path selection, also known as “routing-by-rumors”.
• RIP and BGP are Distance Vector Protocols.
• Link-State Routing Protocol:
• this protocol acknowledges the state of a Link and advertises to its neighbors.
• information about new links is learnt from peer routers.
• after all the routing information has been converged, the Link-State Routing Protocol uses its own
algorithm to calculate the best path to all available links.
• OSPF and IS-IS are link state routing protocols and both of them use Dijkstra’s Shortest Path First
algorithm.
 Interior Routing Protocol:
• protocols in this categories are used
within an AS or organization to
distribute routes among all routers
inside its boundary.
IPv6 - • examples: RIP, OSPF.
Routing
Exterior Routing Protocol:
• distributes routing information
between two different AS or
organization.
• examples: BGP.
 RIPng (Routing Information Protocol Next Generation
• is an Interior Routing Protocol and is a Distance Vector Protocol.
• RIPng has been upgraded to support IPv6.

OSPFv3 (Open Shortest Path First version 3)

IPv6 - • is an Interior Routing Protocol which is modified to support IPv6.
• is a Link-State Protocol and uses Djikrasta’s Shortest Path First
Routing algorithm to calculate best path to all destinations.

BGPv4 (Border Gateway Protocol)

• is the only open standard Exterior Gateway Protocol available.
• is a Distance Vector protocol which takes Autonomous System as
calculation metric, instead of the number of routers as Hop.
• is an upgrade of BGP to support IPv6 routing.
 ICMPv6
• functions the same as in IPv4.
• RFC 4443 defines an updated version of the ICMP protocol for IPv6
• generates error messages and informational messages

DHCPv6 (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)

Protocols • is an implementation of DHCP.

Changed
• IPv6 enabled hosts do not require any DHCPv6 Server to
acquire IP address as they can be auto-configured.
• neither do they need DHCPv6 to locate DNS server because
to DNS can be discovered and configured via ICMPv6 Neighbor
Discovery Protocol; DHCPv6 Server can be used to provide
Support these information.

IPv6 DNS
• there has been no new version of DNS but it is now
equipped with extensions to provide support for querying
IPv6 addresses.
• a new AAAA (quad-A) record has been added to reply IPv6
query messages.
• now the DNS can reply with both IP versions (4 & 6) without
any change in the query format.