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2.4.3 IPv6
A newer version of Internet Protocol, named IPv6 has a bigger address space. It consists
of 128 bits of
information.
The bigger address space
is actually
one of the reason
why
Internet Protocol needs a newer version.
The current Internet Protocol (IPv4) has limited
number of address hosts and soon will be full.
Unlike IPv4 that is represented in decimal
form, IPv6
is represented
in
hexadecimal
form
because it is more efficient for such long characters. The current IPv6 address looks like
the
following:
FECE:BC23:0000:0000:0000:0000:CB34:200C
This looks a little bit harder to read compared to IPv4 addresses that are only 32-bits long
and represented in decimal form.
The separator for each group is represented by a semi-
colon (:) compared to dots (.) in IPv4. While the address syntax looks more complicated,
there are rules to simplify or shorten an IPv6 addresses. The rules are:
•
You can discard leading zeros in each group. So, instead of writing 0005, it
can be replaces by writing 5. Instead of writing 005d, it can be change with
5d, and so on.
•
If there are series of zeros between the groups, it can be replaced with symbol
::
•
The symbol :: can only appear once in each IPv6 address. This happens
because the computer will calculate the missing zeros by counting groups that
exist, and then subtract this number from 8, and then multiply the result with
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