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IPv6

IPv6 – Internet Protocol version 6

(IPv6) is the system that assigns unique addresses to devices and networks on the Internet. IPv6 was created to replace IPv4, which has a limited number of addresses and cannot support the growing number of connected devices in the world. IPv6 has a much larger address space, allowing for 340 undecillion (that’s 36 zeros) possible addresses, compared to 4.3 billion for IPv4.

Some of the main features and benefits of IPv6 are:

  1. Stateless address autoconfiguration: This allows devices to automatically generate their own IPv6 addresses without the need for a server, such as DHCP.
  2.  Optional NAT: NAT (Network Address Translation) is a technique that allows multiple devices to share a single public IP address. This can cause problems for some applications that require direct communication between devices. IPv6 does not need NAT because there are enough addresses for every device to have its own public address.
  3. Easier administration with DHCPv6: DHCPv6 is an improved version of DHCP that can provide more information and configuration options to devices, such as DNS servers, NTP servers, and domain names.
  4.  Improved quality of service with flow labeling: Flow labeling is a feature that allows devices to mark packets with a label that indicates the type and priority of the traffic. This can help routers and switches to handle packets more efficiently and provide better quality of service for applications that require low latency or high bandwidth.
  5. Enhanced security with IPsec: IPsec is a protocol that provides encryption and authentication for IP packets. IPsec is mandatory for IPv6, whereas it is optional for IPv4. This can improve the security and privacy of data transmitted over the Internet.

IPv6 uses a different format for writing addresses than IPv4. IPv6 addresses are composed of eight groups of four hexadecimal digits, separated by colons. For example, 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 is a valid IPv6 address.

However, there are some rules that allow for abbreviating IPv6 addresses to make them shorter and easier to read. For example, leading zeros in each group can be omitted, and consecutive groups of zeros can be replaced by a double colon. Using these rules, the previous address can be written as 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334

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