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 | Parts of this article (those related to RFC 8200 and RFC 8201) need to be updated. (July 2017) |
| Protocol stack | |
 IPv6 header | |
| Abbreviation | IPv6 |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Internetworking protocol |
| Developer(s) | Internet Engineering Task Force |
| Introduction | December 1995 |
| Based on | IPv4 |
| OSI layer | Network layer |
| RFC(s) | 2460, 8200 |
| Internet protocol suite |
|---|
| Application layer |
| Transport layer |
| Internet layer |
| Link layer |
| Internet history timeline |
|
Early research and development:
Merging the networks and creating the Internet:
Commercialization, privatization, broader access leads to the modern Internet:
Examples of Internet services:
|
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to deal with the long-anticipated problem of IPv4 address exhaustion, and was intended to replace IPv4.[1] In December 1998, IPv6 became a Draft Standard for the IETF,[2] which subsequently ratified it as an Internet Standard on 14 July 2017.[3][4]
Devices on the Internet are assigned a unique IP address for identification and location definition. With the rapid growth of the Internet after commercialization in the 1990s, it became evident that far more addresses would be needed to connect devices than the IPv4 address space had available. By 1998, the IETF had formalized the successor protocol. IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses, theoretically allowing 2128, or approximately 3.4×1038 total addresses. The actual number is slightly smaller, as multiple ranges are reserved for special usage or completely excluded from general use. The two protocols are not designed to be interoperable, and thus direct communication between them is impossible, complicating the move to IPv6. However, several transition mechanisms have been devised to rectify this.
IPv6 provides other technical benefits in addition to a larger addressing space. In particular, it permits hierarchical address allocation methods that facilitate route aggregation across the Internet, and thus limit the expansion of routing tables. The use of multicast addressing is expanded and simplified, and provides additional optimization for the delivery of services. Device mobility, security, and configuration aspects have been considered in the design of the protocol.
IPv6 addresses are represented as eight groups of four hexadecimal digits each, separated by colons. The full representation may be shortened; for example, 2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 becomes 2001:db8::8a2e:370:7334.
- ^ "FAQs". New Zealand IPv6 Task Force. Archived from the original on 29 January 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2015.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
rfc2460was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
rfc8200was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Siddiqui, Aftab (17 July 2017). "RFC 8200 – IPv6 Has Been Standardized". Internet Society. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 25 February 2018.