Seminar Report IPV6

IPv6 - THE NEXT GENERATION PROTOCOL

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Abstract
The Internet is one of the greatest revolutionary innovations of the twentieth
century. It made the 'global village Utopia ' a reality in a rather short span of time.
It is changing the way we interact with each other, the way we do business, the
way we educate ourselves and even the way we entertain ourselves. Perhaps even
the architects of Internet would not have foreseen the tremendous growth rate of
the network being witnessed today.

With the advent of the Web and multimedia services, the technology underlying
the Internet has been under stress. It cannot adequately support many services
being envisaged, such as real time video conferencing, interconnection of gigabit
networks with lower bandwidths, high security applications such as electronic
commerce, and interactive virtual reality applications. A more serious problem
with today's Internet is that it can interconnect a maximum of four billion systems
only, which is a small number as compared to the projected systems on the Internet
in the twenty-first century.

Each machine on the net is given a 32-bit address. With 32 bits, a maximum of
about four billion addresses is possible. Though this is a large a number, soon the
Internet will have TV sets, and even pizza machines connected to it, and since
each of them must have an IP address, this number becomes too small. The
revision of IPv4 was taken up mainly to resolve the address problem, but in the
course of refinements, several other features were also added to make it suitable
for the next generation Internet. This version was initially named IPng (IP next
generation) and is now officially known as IPv6. IPv6 supports 128-bit addresses,
the source address and the destination address, each being, 128 bits long. IPv5 a
minor variation of IPv4 is presently running on some routers.

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Presently, most routers run software that support only IPv4. To switch over to IPv6
overnight is an impossible task and the transition is likely to take a very long time.
However to speed up the transition, an IPv4 compatible IPv6 addressing scheme
has been worked out. Major vendors are now writing softwares for various
computing environments to support IPv6 functionality. Incidentally, software
development for different operating systems and router platforms will offer major
jobs opportunities in coming years.

Introduction

IPv6 is sometimes also called the Next Generation Internet Protocol or IPng. IPv6
was recommended by the IPng Area Directors of the Internet Engineering Task
Force at the Toronto IETF meeting on July 25, 1994 in RFC 1752, The
Recommendation for the IP Next Generation Protocol. The recommendation was
approved by the Internet Engineering Steering Group and made a Proposed
Standard on November 17,1994. The core set of IPv6 protocols were made an
IETF Draft Standard on August 10, 1998.

Internet Protocol Version 6 is abbreviated to IPv6 (where the "6" refers to it being
assigned version number 6). The previous version of the Internet Protocol is
version 4 (referred to as IPv4).

TCP/IP Protocol Suite

The complex interconnection of a wide variety of computers and computer

networks is achieved through TCP/IP stack, which runs on every end system
connected to the Internet. IP runs in every end system as well as every router - the
device that interconnects networks on the Internet. IP is a complex protocol that

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handles interconnection of different computer networks having different

addressing schemes, packet formats, interfaces. There are many versions of the
Internet Protocol.

IPv6 includes a transition mechanism, which is designed to allow users to adopt

and deploy IPv6 in a highly diffuse fashion and to provide direct interoperability
between IPv4 and IPv6 hosts. The transition to a new version of the Internet
Protocol must be incremental, with few or no critical interdependencies, if it is to
succeed. The IPv6 transition allows the users to upgrade their hosts to IPv6, and
the network operators to deploy IPv6 in routers, with very little coordination
between the two.

Changes From IPv4 to IPv6

Longer address fields: The length of address is extended from 32 bits to 128 bits.
The address structure also provides more levels of hierarchy. Theoretically, the
address space can support up to 3.4 xlO38 hosts.

Simplified header format: The header format in IPv6 is simpler than that of IPv4.
Some of the header fields in IPv4 such as checksum, IHL, identification, flags, and
fragment offset do not appear in the IPv6 header.

Flexible support for options: The options in IPv6 appear in optional extension
headers that are encoded in a more efficient and flexible fashion than they were in
IPv4.

Flow label capability: IPv6 adds a "flow label" to identify a certain packet "flow"
that requires a certain QoS.

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Security: IPv6 supports built-in authentication and confidentiality.

Large Packets: IPv6 supports payloads that are longer than 64K bytes, called
jumbo payloads.

Fragmentation at source only: Routers are not allowed to fragment packets. If a

packet needs to be fragmented, it must be done at the source.

No checksum field: The checksum field has been removed to reduce packet-
processing time in a router. Packets carried by the physical network such as
Ethernet, token ring, X.25, or ATM are typically already checked. Furthermore,
higher-layer protocols such as TCP and UDP also perform their own verification.
Thus removing the checksum field probably would not introduce a serious
problem in most situations.

Header Format

The IPv6 header consists of a required basic header and optional extension
headers. The format of the basic header is shown below. The packet should be
transmitted in network byte order.
The description of each field in the basic header follows: -
Version: This field specifies the version number of the protocol and should be set
to 6 for IPv6.
The location and length of the version field stays unchanged so that the protocol
software can recognize the version of the packet quickly.

Traffic class: This field specifies the traffic class or priority of the packet. The
traffic class field is intended to support differentiated service.

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Flow label: This field can be to identify the QoS requested by the packet. In the
standard, a flow is defined as "a sequence of packets sent from a particular source
to a particular (unicast or multicast) destination for which the source desires
special handling by the intervening routers." An example of an application that
may use a flow label is a packet video system that requires its packets to be
delivered to the destination within a certain time constraint. Routers that see these
packets will have to process them according to their request. Hosts that do not
support flows are required to set this field to 0.

Payload length: This indicates the length of the data (excluding header). With 16
bits allocated to this field, the payload length is limited to 65,535 bytes.

Next header: The field identifies the type of the extension header that follows the
basic header. The extension header is similar to the options field in IPv4 but is
more flexible and efficient.

Hop limit: This field replaces the TTL field in IPv4. The name now says what it
means: The value specifies the number of hops the packet can travel before
dropped by a router.

Source address and Destination address: The source address and the destination
address identify the source host and the destination host, respectively.

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Extension Headers
To support extra functionalities that are not provided by the basic header, IPv6
allows an arbitrary number of extension headers to be placed between the basic
header and the payload. Extension headers act like options in IPv4 except the
former are encoded more efficiently and flexibly. The extension headers are daisy
chained by the next header field, which appears in the basic header as well as in
each extension header. The figure below illustrates the use of next header field. A
consequence of the daisy-chain formation is that the extension headers must be
processed in the order in which they appear in the packet.

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Six extension headers have been defined. They are listed in the table below. These
extension headers should appear in a packet as they are listed in the table from top
to bottom.

Network Addressing

The IPv6 address is 128 bits long, which increases the overhead somewhat.
However, it is almost certain that the huge address space will be sufficient for
many years to come. The huge address space also gives more flexibility in terms
of address allocation. IPv6 addresses are divided into three categories:
1. Unicast addresses: They identify a single network interface.
2. Multicast addresses: They identify a group of network interfaces, typically at
different locations. A packet will be sent to all network interfaces in the group.
3. Anycast addresses: They also identify a group of network interfaces.
However, a packet will be sent to only one network interface in the group, usually
the nearest one.

IPv4 address typically uses the dotted-decimal notation when communicated by

people. It is obvious that the dotted-decimal notation can be rather long when
applied to IPv6 long addresses. A more compact notation that is specified in the
standard is to use a hexadecimal digit for every 4 bits and to separate every 16 bits
with a colon. An example of an IPv6 address is
4BF5:AA12:0216:FEBC:BA5F:038A:BE9A:2176

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Often IPv6 addresses can be shortened to a more compact form. The first
shorthand notation can be exploited when the 16-bit field has some leading zeros.
In this case the leading zeros can be removed, but there must be at least one
numeral in the field. As an example

4BF5:0000:0000:0000:BA5F:039A:OOOA:2176 can be shortened to

4BF5:0:0:0:BA5F:39A:A:2176

Further shortening is possible where consecutive zero-valued fields appear. These

fields can be shortened with the double-colon notation (::). Of course, the double-
colon notation can appear only once in an address, since the number of zero-
valued fields is not encoded and needs to be deduced from the specified total
number of fields. Continuing with the preceding example, the address can be
written even more compactly as,

4BF5::BA5F:39A:A:2176

To recover the original address from one containing a double colon, we take the
nonzero values that appear to the left of the double colons and align them to left.
You then take the number that appears to the right of the double colons and align
them to the right. The field between is set to Os.

The dotted-decimal notation of IPv4 can be mixed with the new hexadecimal
notation. This approach is useful for the transition period when IPv4 and IPv6
coexist. An example is mixed notation is

::FFFF:128.155.12.198

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Address locations are organized by types, which are in turn classified

according to prefixes (leading bits of the address). The initial allocation for prefixes
is given below in the Table.

Address types based on prefixes

Less than 30 percent of the address space has been assigned. The remaining portion
of the address space is for future use. Most types are assigned for unicast addresses,
except the one with a leading byte of Is, which is assigned for multicast. Anycast
addresses are not differentiated from unicast and share the same address space.

IPv6 assigns a few addresses for special purposes. The address 0: :0 is called the
unspecified address and is never used as a destination address. However, it may be
used as a source address when the source station wants to learn its own address.
The address : :1 is used for a loopback whose purpose is the same as the loopback

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address in IPv4. Another set of special addresses is needed during the transition
period where an IPv6 packet needs to be "tunneled" across an IPv4 network. These
addresses, called IPv4-compatible addresses, are used by routers and hosts that are
directly connected to an IPv4 network. The address format consists of 96 bits of
Os followed by 32 bits of IPv4 address. Thus an IPv4 address of 135.150.10.247
can be converted to an IPv4-compatible IPv6 address of ::132.150.10.247. A
similar set of special addresses is used to indicate hosts and routers that do not
support IPv6. These addresses are called IP-mapped addresses. The format of
these addresses consists of 80 bits of Os, followed by 16 bits of Is, and then by 32
bits of IPv4 address.

Provider-based unicast addresses are identified by the prefix 010. It appears that
these addresses will be mainly used by the Internet service providers to assign
addresses to their subscribers. The format of these addresses is shown below.

Provider-based address format

Notice the hierarchical structure of this address format. The first level is identified
by the registry ID. The next level identifies the Internet service provider that is
responsible for assigning the subscriber IDs. Finally, each subscriber assigns the
addresses according to the subnet IDs and interface IDs.
The local addresses are used for a collection of hosts that do not want to connect to
the global Internet because of security and privacy concerns. There are two types
of local addresses: link-local addresses and site-local addresses. The link-local

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addresses are used for a single link, while the site-local addresses are used for a
single site. The local addresses are designed so that when an organization decides
to connect the hosts to the global Internet, the move will be as painless as possible.

Fragmentation

IPv6 allows only the source host to perform fragmentation. Intermediate routers
are forbidden to fragment any packet. If the packet length is greater than the MTU
(Maximum Transmission Unit) of the network, this packet is to be forwarded to,
then, an intermediate router must discard the packet and send an ICMP error
message back to the source. A source can find the minimum MTU along the path
from the source to the destination by performing a "path MTU discovery"
procedure. An advantage of doing fragmentation at the source only is that routers
can process packets faster, which is important in a high-speed environment. A
disadvantage is that the path between a source and a destination must remain
reasonably static so that the path MTU discovery does not give outdated
information.

IPv6 Security

The current Internet has a number of security problems and lacks effective privacy
and authentication mechanisms below the application layer. IPv6 remedies these
shortcomings by having two integrated options that provide security services.
These two options may be used singly or together to provide differing levels of
security to different users. This is very important because different user
communities have different security needs.
The first mechanism, called the "IPng Authentication Header", is an extension
header which provides authentication and integrity (without confidentiality) to
IPv6 datagrams. The use of the IPng Authentication Header is particularly

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important when source routing is used with IPv6 because of the known risks in IP
source routing. Its placement at the Internet layer can help provide host origin
authentication to those upper layer protocols and services that currently lack
meaningful protections. This mechanism only provides authentication and
integrity, and specifically does not provide confidentiality.

The second security extension header provided with IPng is the "IPng
Encapsulating Security Header". This mechanism provides integrity and
confidentiality to IPv6 datagrams.

IPv6 Quality-of-Service Capabilities

The Flow Label and the Traffic class fields in the IPv6 header may be used by a
host to identify those packets for which it requests special handling by IPv6
routers, such as non-default quality of service or "real-time" service. This
capability is important in order to support applications, which require some degree
of consistent throughput, delay, and/or jitter. These types of applications are
commonly described as "multi-media" or "real-time" applications.

Current IPv6 Specifications

Internet Control Message Protocol:

IPv6 uses ICMP as defined for IPv4, with a number of changes. The resulting
protocol is called ICMPv6. ICMPv6 is used by IPv6 nodes to report errors
encountered in processing packets, and to perform other internet-layer functions,
such as diagnostics (ICMPv6 "ping"). ICMPv6 is an integral part of IPv6 and must
be fully implemented by every IPv6 node.

Hop by Hop Options:

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The presence of Hop-by-Hop option in an IPv6 datagram informs the router that
the contents of this datagram are of interest to the router and to handle any control
data accordingly. The absence of this option in an IPv6 datagram informs the
router that the datagram does not contain information needed by the router and
hence can be safely routed without further datagram parsing. Hosts originating
IPv6 datagrams are required to include this option in certain circumstances.

Path MTU Discovery:

When one IPv6 node has a large amount of data to send to another node, the data
is transmitted in a series of IPv6 packets. It is usually preferable that these packets
be of the largest size that can successfully traverse the path from the source node
to the destination node. This packet size is referred to as the Path MTU (PMTU),
and it is equal to the minimum link MTU of all the links in a path. IPv6 defines a
standard mechanism for a node to discover the PMTU of an arbitrary path.

IPv6 nodes should implement Path MTU Discovery in order to discover and take
advantage of paths with PMTU greater than the IPv6 minimum link MTU. A
minimal IPv6 implementation may choose to omit implementation of Path MTU
Discovery.

Header Compression:
Reducing the size of a header by removing header fields or reducing the size of
header fields is called Header Compression. This is done in a way such that a
decompressor can reconstruct the header if its context state is identical to the
context state used when compressing the header. There are several reasons to do
header compression on low- or medium-speed links. Header compression can
• Improve interactive response time

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• Allow using small packets for bulk data with good line efficiency
• Allow using small packets for delay sensitive low data-rate traffic
• Decrease header overhead.
• Reduce packet loss rate over lossy links.

Packet Tunneling:

A packet is encapsulated and carried as payload within an IPv6 packet. The

resulting packet is called an IPv6 tunnel packet. The forwarding path between the
source and destination of the tunnel packet is called an IPv6 tunnel. The technique
is called IPv6 tunneling.

Domain Name System:

Current support for the storage of Internet addresses in the Domain Name System
(DNS) cannot easily be extended to support IPv6 addresses since applications
assume that address queries return 32-bit IPv4 addresses only. To support the
storage of IPv6 addresses we define the following extensions:
• A new resource record type is defined to map a domain name to an IPv6
address.
• A new domain is defined to support lookups based on address.
• Existing queries that perform additional section processing to locate IPv4
addresses are redefined to perform additional section processing on both IPv4 and
IPv6 addresses.
Transition Mechanisms:
The IPv6 transition mechanisms are a set of protocol mechanisms implemented in
hosts and routers, along with some operational guidelines for addressing and

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deployment, designed to make transition the Internet to IPv6 work with as little
disruption as possible.

The IPv6 transition mechanisms provide a number of features, including:

Incremental upgrade and deployment, Minimal upgrade dependencies, Easy
Addressing, Low start-up costs and many more.

Routing:
Routing in IPv6 is almost identical to IPv4 routing, except that the addresses are
128-bit IPv6 addresses instead of 32-bit IPv4 addresses. With very straightforward
extensions, all of IPv4's routing algorithms (OSPF, RIP, IDRP, ISIS, etc.) can be
used to route Ipv6.

Renumbering:
Router Renumbering ("RR") is a mechanism, which allows address prefixes on
routers to be configured and reconfigured almost as easily as the combination of
Neighbor Discovery and Address Autoconfiguration works for hosts. It provides a
means for a network manager to make updates to the prefixes used by and
advertised by IPv6 routers throughout a site. Neighbor Discovery:

IPv6 nodes on the same link use Neighbor Discovery to discover each other's
presence, to determine each other's link-layer addresses, to find routers and to
maintain reachability information about the paths to active neighbors.

Auto configuration:
The auto configuration process includes creating a link-local address and verifying
its uniqueness on a link, determining what information should be auto configured
(addresses, other information, or both), and in the case of addresses, whether they

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should be obtained through the stateless mechanism, the stateful mechanism, or

both.

IPv6 defines both a stateful and stateless address autoconfiguration mechanism.

Stateless autoconfiguration requires no manual configuration of hosts, minimal (if
any) configuration of routers, and no additional servers. The stateless mechanism
allows a host to generate its own addresses using a combination of locally
available information and information advertised by routers. Routers advertise
prefixes that identify the subnet(s) associated with a link, while hosts generate an
"interface identifier" that uniquely identifies an interface on a subnet. An address
is formed by combining the two. In the absence of routers, a host can only
generate link-local addresses. However, link-local addresses are sufficient for
allowing communication among nodes attached to the same link.

In the stateful autoconfiguration model, hosts obtain interface addresses and/or

configuration information and parameters from a server. Servers maintain a
database that keeps track of which addresses have been assigned to which hosts.
The stateful autoconfiguration protocol allows hosts to obtain addresses, other
configuration information or both from a server.

Mobility:

A globally unique Home-Address is assigned for every Mobile Node. That address
identifies the mobile node to other nodes. The Home-Address could include some
ownership information which may be used e.g. for generation of accounting
records.
A Mobile Node must be able to communicate directly with nodes that do not
implement mobility functions. This restriction is somewhat loosened presently:
every node should implement some mobility functions.

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Communication paths must be maintained even when a mobile station is roaming

between different points of attachment. That is, any topological changes must not
affect transport connections.

A Mobile Station must always be authenticated by other routing nodes and

correspondent nodes. This should happen especially with redirection or path
optimization updates. In other words mobility must not create an environment that
is less secure than other parts of the Internet. The means to maintain anonymity,
location and content privacy must be provided.

The bandwidth and processing matters should not depend on hardware

improvements, but the Mobility Support must operate in the current hardware
environments. As a radio interface bandwidth is at present more restricted, all the
protocol message header fields that will be transmitted over that interface should
be as simple as possible.
IPv6 over Different Media:
* IPv6 over Ethernet
* IPv6 over FDDI
* IPv6 over PPP
* IPv6 over Token Ring
* IPv6 over Arcnet
* IPv6 over ATM
* IPv6 over Frame Relay
* IPv6 over IP Tunnels

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Network Management:

Many of the merits of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) have to do with the
manner in which the network is managed. This is because most of the problems in
IPv4, which IPv6 was created to overcome, were not problems in how the protocol
functioned, but in what the protocol was prepared to handle. IPv4 was simply not
made to handle networks of the gigantic proportions of today. Many of IPv6's new
capabilities were created to handle larger sizes.

One of these capabilities is the manner of registration. The registry system for
IPv6 in many ways should mimic that of IPv4. However, as the IPv4 network grew
to hitherto unforeseen proportions, even as the need for more address space
became more and more urgent, it was evident that the centralized management of
addresses was becoming more and more difficult. IPv6 came about as a solution to
the demand for more address space than IPv4 could provide.

IPv6 - Enabled Applications

Chat software, DNS, Firewalls, FTP, Games, IPsec, Java, Mail, Mobile IPv6,
Monitoring Tools, News, Patch Sites, Socket software, Web servers and clients.
Implementations

Host implementations by:

Apple, BSDI, Bull, Digital, Epilogue, FreeBSD, FTP Software, Hitachi, HP, IBM,
INRIA, Interpeak, Linux, Mentat, Microsoft, NetBSD, Nokia, Novell, NRL,
NTHU, OpenBSD, Pacific Softworks, Process Software, SICS, SCO, Siemens
Nixdorf, Silicon Graphics, Sun, UNH, and WIDE.

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Router implementations by:

3Com, 6WIND, Bay Networks, Cisco Systems, Digital, Hitachi, IBM, Merit
(routing protocols), Nokia, NTHU, Sumitomo Electric, and Telebit
Communications.

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Conclusion
In a world where the spread of the Internet grows at exponential speed, the lack of
address space is a dire problem. It is not a matter of if, but when, IPv4 address
space will run out. Address re-use is a short-term solution that restricts facilities.
Address re-use mechanisms work for people who just use e-mail and the Web, but
it is not viable for servers, which need dedicated IP addresses. Scarcity of IP
addresses will lead to rationing, either by arbitrary control, or by price.

With IP Version 6 (IPv6) there will be no scarcity of addresses. IPv6 is not simply
a version of IPv4 with a mammoth address space. It has characteristics of its own.
The IPv6 network will become a sphere of space that can be easily navigated,
instead of the daunting jungle it could easily become. Address assignment and
network maintenance will become more manageable and will continue to be
manageable even in the face of an ever-expanding IPv6 network.

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References
1. Alberto Leon-Garcia and Indra Widjaja, "Communication Networks -
Fundamental Concepts and Key Architectures" Publisher: Tata McGraw-Hill
Publishing Company Limited
Some important websites:
1. http://plavqround.sun.com/pub/ipng/html/ipng-main.html
2. http://playground.sun.com/pub/ipng/html/INET-IPng-Paper.html
3. http://playground.sun.com/pub/ipng/html/specs/specifications.html
4. ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2463.txt
5. ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2711.txt
6. ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfcl981.txt
7. ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2507.txt
8. ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2473.txt
9. ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfcl886.txt
10. ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2894.txt
11. ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2461.txt
12. ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2462.txt
13. http://www.tml.hut.fi/Opinnot/Tik-110.551/1996/mob ipv6.html
14. http://www.bblisa.org/docs/May 98/tsld026.htm
15. http://www.isoc.org/inet99/4s/4s l.htm
16. http://www.ipv6forum.com/

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