1: Introduction to IPv6

Rick Graziani
Cabrillo College
Rick.Graziani@cabrillo.edu

For more information please check out my Cisco Press book and video series:

IPv6 Fundamentals: A Straightforward

Approach to Understanding IPv6

By Rick Graziani

ISBN-10: 1-58714-313-5

IPv6 Fundamentals LiveLessons: A

Straightforward Approach to Understanding IPv6

By Rick Graziani

ISBN-10: 1-58720-457-6

1.1: Beginning with IPv4

Beginning with IPv4

IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4)

Developed in the early 1980s
RFC 760 Jan 1980 obsoleted
by RFC 791 Sep 1981

IPv4

10.1.1.1
10.1.0.2

32-bit addresses represented in dotted-decimal notation.

Provides 4.29 billion addresses.
Why not more addresses?
It seemed like a lot of addresses at the time!

IPv4
IPv4 was standardized in 1981,
provisioning 4.29 billion (232) IP
addresses for a world population

IPv4 - 1981

of 4.41 billion people.

= 100,000,000
= 100,000,000
*www.census.gov
IPv4 Addresses

World Population 1980

4.29 billion addresses, about a 1:1 ratio with the worlds

population.
What was the Internet like in 1981?
No WWW, no mobile devices, and most people never heard of
the Internet
Mostly mainframe and minicomputers
The IBM PC was introduced trying to overtake the Apple II
Images courtesy of Computer History Museum

The Internet Begins to Take Off

1990s introduced the World Wide Web.

Everyone was getting on the Internet.
Internet routing tables growing rapidly 20,000 routes in 1994.
IETF realized that it would soon run out of IPv4 address space.
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum

IPv4: Running Out of Addresses

Private
Private Address
Address
Space
Space
10.0.0.0/8
10.0.0.0/8
172.16.0.0/12
172.16.0.0/12
192.168.0.0/16
192.168.0.0/16

Short term solutions included:

NAT (Network Address Translation)
Private address space
CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing)
Long-term solution: IPv6

IPv4

1.2 Introducing IPv6

Introducing IPv6
Not a new protocol.
Developed mid to late
1990s.
Much learned from IPv4.
128-bit address space,
written in hexadecimal.
This gives us 340
undecillion addresses!
2001:DB8:CAFE:0001::100

128 bits

128 bits

340 undecillion
= 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456

IPv6
How many is 340 undecillion?
340 undecillion addresses is 10
nonillion addresses per person!
Internet is a much different place
and will continue to evolve:
Mobile devices
Video on demand
Internet of Everything
A critical part in how we live,
work, play, and learn.
10 nonillion
= 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

IPv6
IPv6 is not just about more
addresses:
Stateless autoconfiguration
End-to-end reachability without
private addresses and NAT
Better support for mobility
Peer-to-peer networking easier to
create and maintain, and
services such as VoIP and
Quality of Service (QoS) become
more robust.

IPv6: A Brief History

1993, IETF announced a call for white papers with RFC 1550
IP: Next Generation (IPng) White Paper Solicitation.
IETF chose Simple Internet Protocol Plus (SIPP) written by
Steve Deering, Paul Francis, and Bob Hinden but changed the
address size from 64 bits to 128 bits.
1995, IETF published RFC 1883 Internet Protocol, Version 6
(IPv6) Specification - later obsoleted by RFC 2460 in 1998.

RFC 1190

What About IPv5?

4 = IPv4
5 = ST2
6 = IPv6

In the late 1970s, a family of experimental protocols was

developed intended to provide quality of service (QoS) for realtime multimedia applications such video and voice.
Known as Internet Stream Protocol (ST) and later ST2 (RFC
1190 and RFC 1819).
Although it was never known as IPv5, when encapsulated in IP,
ST uses IP Protocol version 5.

1.3: The Need for IPv6

The Need for IPv6

We are running out of
IPv4 address space.
Monday, January 31,
2011 IANA allocated the
last /8 IPv4 address
blocks to the RIRs.
RIRs have very few, if
any IPv4 address left.
Many ISPs are severely
limited and some have
already run out.

Actual or projected dates

as of November 2014

Source: www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4
Note: APNIC and RIPE are not completely out of addresses
but they are very restrictive on allocation of addresses.

Running Out of IPv4

The regions with the largest populations have the lowest

percentages of people connected to the Internet
Graphic from Internet World Stats, www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Internet of
Everything

Cisco defines the Internet of Everything (IoE) as bringing

together people, process, data, and things to make networked
connections more relevant and valuable than ever before.
Cisco estimates that there will be 50 billion connected devices
by 2020. (Source: The Internet of Things by Dave Evans)

NAT
Customer Network
192.168.1.0/24

No More NAT as We Know It

ISP Network
Public IPv4

Internet
Public IPv4

(RFC 1918)

NAT has been used to help hide customers and works for many clientinitiated applications.
However, NAT also creates some issues, like peer-to-peer networking
and accessing our hidden systems from other networks.
Using NAT to hide IPv6 networks has been the source of some
debate.
IETF continues to state that NAT is not a security feature.

Benefits of IPv6

As mentioned previously the benefits of

IPv6 include:
Larger address space
Stateless autoconfiguration
End-to-end reachability without private
addresses and NAT
Better mobility support
Peer-to-peer networking easier to create
and maintain, and services such as VoIP
and Quality of Service (QoS) become
more robust.
The killer application for the Internet is
the Internet itself.

Graphic from IPv6 Forum, www.ipv6ready.org

1.4: Transitioning to IPv6

Transitioning to IPv6?
IPv4 and IPv6 will coexist for
the foreseeable future.
Dual-stack Device running
both IPv4 and IPv6.
Enterprises and ISPs have to
support both protocols, which
is a reason to eventually go to
only IPv6.

IPv4 IPv6

Happy Eyeballs

RFC6555 Happy Eyeballs:

Success with Dual-Stack Hosts

The dual-stack code may get two

addresses back from DNS
Which one does it use?
In order to use applications over
IPv6, it is necessary that users enjoy
nearly identical performance as
compared to IPv4.

IPv4
IPv6

RFC6555 Happy Eyeballs:

Success with Dual-Stack Hosts
www.facebook.com
www.facebook.com

Query
Query A
A record?
record?
www.facebook.com
www.facebook.com
Connect
Connect to:
to:
31.13.77.65
31.13.77.65

Query
Query AAAA
AAAA record?
record?
www.facebook.com
www.facebook.com

Connect
Connect to:
to:
2a03:2880:f016:401:face:b00c:01:1
2a03:2880:f016:401:face:b00c:01:1
GET
GET HTTP/1.1
HTTP/1.1
www.facebook.com
www.facebook.com

Happy Eyeballs in a nutshell

Attempt
Attempt IPv6
IPv6 lookup
lookup and
and
connect
connect

User:
User:
www.facebook.com
www.facebook.com

Ultimately, it depends on how the OS

and application wants to handle it.

Retrieve
Retrieve and
and display
display
First come, first served

Attempt
Attempt IPv4
IPv4 lookup
lookup and
and
connect
connect
300ms
300ms
TIME
TIME

Transitioning to IPv6

Tunneling Various protocols to encapsulate IPv6

packets inside IPv4 packets.
NAT64 Translating between IPv4 and IPv6.
Native IPv6 All IPv6 (our focus and the goal of every
organization).

Learn, Use, and Familiarize Yourself with IPv6

Get behind the wheel of IPv6.

Test lab for IPv6.
Implement in a part of your network.
Develop an IPv6 implementation plan including an addressing
plan.

You Are Probably Already Running IPv6

IPv4

RS

IPv4
IPv6

R1
Here is an
IPv6 prefix
and
gateway

Rogue
RA
IPv4
IPv6

I need an
IPv6 prefix

Windows Vista or later, Mac OSX, Linux already running IPv6

Packet analyzer (Wireshark)
Potential man-in-the-middle attack
RS (Router Solicitations) and RA (Router Advertisements) described
in other lessons. (Mitigation techniques like RA Guard are available.)
Get familiar with IPv6!
People Icon: Occupations set 5 Copyright Fredy Sujono

For more information please check out my Cisco Press book and video series:

IPv6 Fundamentals: A Straightforward

Approach to Understanding IPv6

By Rick Graziani

ISBN-10: 1-58714-313-5

IPv6 Fundamentals LiveLessons: A

Straightforward Approach to Understanding IPv6

By Rick Graziani

ISBN-10: 1-58720-457-6

1: Introduction to IPv6
Rick Graziani
Cabrillo College
Rick.Graziani@cabrillo.edu