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 …...