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An Introduction to IPv6

Playboy writes "Here is a great introduction to IPv6 in general, the technological background, the reasons for the move and the effects this will have on networks. Understandable for network novices like me but still includes many details on the technological side of things."

8 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'll just wait.... by ceswiedler · · Score: 5, Informative

    He's passed on (hence the joke, I get it) but in his TCP/IP Illustrated books, he discusses IPv6 thoroughly, including how to write applications to use either protocol seamlessly.

  2. Switches? by ImaLamer · · Score: 4, Informative

    What about the bulbs? How can check to see if they are actually on? How will my switch...

    oh forget it... just give me a few million addresses

  3. Guys got an error or two... by Ironsides · · Score: 4, Informative

    there will no longer be a need for IP address conservation since there will now be enough IPv6 addresses available for each person on the planet to have 10 of their very own.

    Given that there are 128 bits for IPs in IPv6 this translates into 3.4*10^38 IP addresses. I think this comes out to roughly 5.6*10^28 IP addresses per person.

    --
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  4. Re:Short Sighted? by barcodez · · Score: 4, Informative

    The most obvious distinguishing feature of IPv6 is its use of much larger addresses. The size of an address in IPv6 is 128 bits, which is four times larger than an address in IPv4. A 32-bit address space allows for 2^32 or 4,294,967,296 possible addresses. A 128-bit address space allows for 2^128 or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,45 6 (3.4 × 1038) possible addresses.
    The population of the earth is ~6 billion (US billion). So 56,713,727,820,156,410,577,229,101,238 each

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  5. Re:Home by leerpm · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, ::1 is the home/localhost/loopback address. ::0 is when you have no assigned IP address, logically equivalent to 0.0.0.0 in IPv4.

  6. There is no shortage by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dozens of /8s are available; last time I checked it was about 40% of the total address space.

  7. Re:Not a bad start...but a couple of things on IPv by liam193 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually some of those issues are covered in IPv6. There is a new address type called an any-cast address. The idea, which will be interesting to see how it's implimented, is that all DNS servers will use an single any-cast address. The routers will somehow be told that this any-cast exists on this particular machine. When someone needs a DNS lookup they will use the hard-code any-cast address for DNS that everyone else in the world uses; however, instead of everyone hitting the same machine, they will hit the "closest" machine with that any-cast address. The same can be true for NTP, etc. Basically these are services that do not require that you have any particular device, just one of any of the ones in the world... preferably the closest or least busy.

  8. Re:IPv6 by 2008? Who's he kidding? by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 3, Informative

    Internet 2 uses it exclusively.

    Boy, are you wrong.

    WRONG.

    (Just that sentence, of course. The rest of your post is right.)

    Wrongity-wrong-wrong-wrong.

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    There are no trails. There are no trees out here.