Category: Internet

IPv6 Special Addresses

No network address, no broadcast address

Global unicast range
2000::/3 =
2000:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 – 3FFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF

Unique local unicast range (similar to IPv4 private address)
FC00::/7 =
FC00:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 – FDFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF

Link-local unicast range (similar to IPv4 link-local – 169.*.*.*, for autoconfiguration)
FE80::/10 =
FE80:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 – FEBF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF

Site local unicast range (deprecated)
FEC0::/10 =
FEC0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 – FEFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF

Multicast range
FF00::/8 =
FF00:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 – FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF

Reserved for examples and documentation
2001:0DB8::/32 =
2001:0DB8:0:0:0:0:0:0 – 2001:0DB8:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF

6to4, the transition system from IPv4 to IPv6
2002::/16 =
2002:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 – 2002:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF

URL syntax with IPv6 address:
http://%5B2001::fa00:1234:5678:1]/
(IPv6 address inside square brackets)

IPv6

Did you know that the world will officially launch Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) on 6 June 2012 GMT?

What is IPv6? It’s the next generation of IP Protocol designed to overcome the problem of the depletion IP addresses in existing IP, the version 4 (IPv4) and addresses many weaknesses in IPv4.

What’s the difference between IPv4 (the old one) and the IPv6 (the new one)? A lot! But to make it clear on how it will give us much are IP address, here’s one huge difference:

IPv4 in total only has 232 address, while IPv6 has total of 2128 addresses.

Isn’t that only four times larger than IPv4? Do your math right. It’s the power that’s four times bigger. The actual comparation is IPv4 has 4294967296 address while IPv6 has 3.4028236692093846346337460743177e+38 (this is the calculation from my CALC program). See the difference?

The rest, leave it to network engineers.

Cheers,
Haris