A network address
serves as a unique identifier for a computer on a network. Computers use these
addresses to send messages to each other.
IP addresses information is handled by the NETWORK layer of the OSI stack.
Windows users : ipconfig command will show your current ip address.
Unix/Linux users : ifconfig -a will show all the interfaces and the assigned ip address
eg:
ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:10.202.254.19 P-t-P:10.64.64.64 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:41 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
RX bytes:610 (610.0 B) TX bytes:2506 (2.5 KB)
The current IP addressing version is IP v4 which has many limitation.
-
IP v4 addresses are broken into 4 octets separated by dots called dotted decimal notation.
An octet is a byte consisting of 8 bits. This is a 32 bit address.
Eg:
192.168.1.1
Binary representation :11000000 10100100 00000001 00000001
- 32-bit address space of IPv4 allows for
4,294,967,296 addresses , Over half a billion of those
are unusable as addresses for various reasons
- Various workaround were implemented to overcome
the address limitation
eg : NAT ( Network address translation)
CIDR ( Class less inter
domain routing
IP v6 advantage
- IPv6
addresses are 128 bits long but are normally written as eight groups of 4 hexadecimal digits
each. For example,
3ffe:6a88:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7344
-
The number of possible addresses in IPv6 is 2128 ≈ 3.4 x
1038
This
is the equivalent of
430,000,000,000,000,000,000 unique addresses per square inch of the Earth's surface ( Imagine
of intelligent bots all over the world ha ha....!!)
- IPv6 hosts can be configured automatically when
connected to a routed IPv6 network.
-
Multicast
is part of the base protocol suite in Ipv6
- In IPv4, packets are limited to 64K of payload.
, IPv6 has support for packets over this limit, referred to as jumbograms.
- IPsec, the protocol for IP network-layer
encryption and authentication, is an built in part of the base protocol suite in IPv6
IP v6 with windows XP
To install
IPv6, start a command prompt session and type the following:
Ipv6
install
To veryfy
type the following command
Ipv6 if
To ping the
local loopback type the following
ping6 ::1
IP v6 with windows Vista
Windows
Vista the ships with IPv6 protocol is configured and enabled by default, so you
don't need to do anything
eg : ip V6
properties in windows Vista
IP v6 is here …....... Get ready …...