OK i understand IPv6 is the new IP standard that is going to alleviate the current problems with IPv4. (running out of IPs)
I would like to know the ins and outs of the new standard. Can anyone shed some light?

That's a really simple question with a complicated answer.

Really briefly, the main deal is that public IPv4 addresses are running out. I'm not going to get bogged down in arguments about when or how fast, they're just running out. The rate that it's been running out has been slowed down over time, first by classful networks, then by VLSM, CIDR and private addressing + NAT/PAT.

IPv4 can has 32 bits for IP addresses. Meaning a total number of addresses of 2^32 = 4 294 967 296 addresses.

IPv6 has 128 bits for addresses. Meaning a total number of addresses of 3.4028236692093846346337460743177e+38 (windows calc can't display it )

So the idea is that we won't run out of IP addresses.

There's much more to it when you start looking at the fundamentals as well as migration and deployment strategies.

What kind of issues will this have for the home user? I think with win7 going with the "homegroup" type setup will make it easier, but in the past the general public have needed to know a little about Ip addressing. Will IPv6 make it difficult for the average user to understand?

This is speculating but I don't think the home user will know or care assuming they're not living with a stone age operating system (previous to Vista or OS X) or router.

The setup required by a home user at the moment is limited to typing in the username and password for their adsl connection and possibly turning on the wireless. No big deal.

Between the computer and the router will be handled by either DHCPv6 or stateless address autoconfiguration with no setup required by the home user.

Between the router and the ISP will still be handled by the BRAS.

I'd imagine that ISPs will be supporting both IPv4 and IPv6 for a long time to come and that until IPv4 support is switched off, a user won't have to worry about upgrading. During this transition I can see consumer routers running dual-stack to enable routing of both addressing schemes.

I mentioned stone age operating systems because since Vista and OS X, desktops have run dual-stack out of the box. So assuming that the user actually wants to run IPv6 to the desktop rather then just a IPv4-v6 translation at their gateway router, home networking will remain a no-brainer affair.

The difference is that some security aspects have changed focus.

If you're keen, you can sign up now for an IPv6 tunnel through a broker. Internode and AARNet both provide broker services. This will allow you to access the IPv6 address space without needing an ISP to support it.

so if IPv6 looks like this (2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334) Whats each part? is the fact its using a hex-decimal system meaning it can be used alot more times? I heard the idea behind it was so that every item can have its own unique IP. As in the fridge, washer, dryer, dog, pot plant....etc etc...is this the case?

cheech wrote:so if IPv6 looks like this (2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334) Whats each part? is the fact its using a hex-decimal system meaning it can be used alot more times? I heard the idea behind it was so that every item can have its own unique IP. As in the fridge, washer, dryer, dog, pot plant....etc etc...is this the case?

Well there are 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses so I'm sure nobody's pot plant will miss out on an IP Addresses if they want it.

The example address you've given (2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334) is known as a unicast address being one of the three types of addresses (unicast, anycast and multicast - note, no broadcast)

The first section - 2001:0db8:85a3:0000 is the part typically handed out by an ISP. If you run a search from an Regional Internet Registry (RIR), you'll see that the range 2001:0C00:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 - 2001:0DFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF has been given to the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre. This is the RIR that delegates IP addresses to ISPs in Australia. To see what addresses have been allocated check this website.



From what I've read, organisations that apply for an IPv6 address range are being delegated /48 addresses. Meaning that it's possible the company that owns the example address owns 2001:0db8:85a3:0000 - 2001:0db8:85a3:FFFF.

The other half of the example (0000:8a2e:0370:7334) is what's known as an EUI-64 address. These addresses are derived from the EUI-48 address on a network card, otherwise known as the MAC address.

If you're really bored, have a read of RFC 2373 from the IETF.