Alteon Application Switch Operating System Application Guide
IPv6
836
Document
ID:
RDWR-ALOS-V2900_AG1302
IPv6 Address Format
The IPv6 address is 128 bits long, and is represented as a sequence of eight 16-bit hex values,
separated by colons. The preferred format is
xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx
.
Example
FEDC:BA98:7654:BA98:FEDC:1234:ABCD:5412
Compressing Long Sequences of Zeros
Some addresses can contain long sequences of zeros. A contiguous sequence of zeros can be
compressed to :: (double colon).
Example
The address
FE80:0:0:0:2AA:FF:FA:4CA2
can be compressed to
FE80::2AA:FF:FA:4CA2
.
Unlike IPv4, a subnet mask is not used for IPv6 addresses.
Prefix Length for a Network Identifier
IPv6 uses prefix length for network identifier.
Example
In this example, 64 is the network prefix:
21DA:D300:0000:2F3C::/64
ICMP Router Discovery is used to determine
the IPv4 address of the best default gateway
and is optional.
ICMPv4 Router Discovery is replaced with ICMPv6
Router Solicitation (Discovery) and Router
Advertisement messages and is required.
Broadcast addresses are used to send traffic
to all nodes on the subnet.
There are no IPv6 broadcast addresses. Instead a
link-local scope all-nodes multicast address is used.
Must be configured either manually or
through DHCP for IPv4.
IPV6 does not require manual or DHCP
configuration.
Uses host address (A) resource records in
DNS to map host names to IPv4 addresses.
Uses AAAA records in the DNS to map host names
to IPv6 addresses.
Uses pointer (PTR) resource records in the
IN-ADDR.ARPA DNS domain to map IPv4
addresses to host names.
Uses pointer (PTR) resource records in the IP6.INT
DNS domains to map IPv6 addresses to host
names.
Table 71: Differences Between IPv4 and IPv6 Protocols (cont.)
IPv4
IPv6
