IPV4 Vs IPV6 :

THE TRANSITION TO IPv6

By : Pallavi K Shewale
Lets Start with Humour
 Introduction
• What is IP?
– The Internet Protocol (IP) is the method or protocol by
which data is sent from one computer to another on the
Internet.
• History
– In 1978, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)
mandated the use of IPv4 for all “host-to-host” data
exchange enabling IPv4 to become the mechanism for the
military to create integrated versus stovepiped
communications
 What we will cover in this
presentation :
• IPv4 Address structure

• The IPv4 address resource problem

• Network Address translation of private address to global addresses for IPv4 address
conservation.

• Why IPv6? Why not IPv5?

• IPv6 Specifications (rfc1883)

• Advantages of ipv6

• IPv6 addressing structure (rfc1884)

• IPv4 to IPv6 transition

• Need for port number translations in IPv4 to IPv6 NAT(rfc2766)

 IPv4 Address Scheme
• An IP packet contains several types of information, as illustrated .
 IPv4 Addressing
• As with any other network-layer protocol, the IP addressing scheme is integral to
the process of routing IP datagrams through an internetwork. Each IP address
has specific components and follows a basic format. These IP addresses can be
subdivided and used to create addresses for subnetworks, as discussed in more
detail later.
• Each host on a TCP/IP network is assigned a unique 32-bit logical address that is
divided into two main parts: the network number and the host number. The
network number identifies a network and must be assigned by the Internet
Network Information Center (InterNIC) if the network is to be part of the
Internet. An Internet Service Provider (ISP) can obtain blocks of network
addresses from the InterNIC and can itself assign address space as necessary. The
host number identifies a host on a network and is assigned by the local network
administrator.
• The 32-bit IP address is grouped eight bits at a time, separated by dots, and
represented in decimal format (known as dotted decimal notation). Each bit in
the octet has a binary weight (128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1). The minimum value for
an octet is 0, and the maximum value for an octet is 255.The figure below
illustrates the basic format of an IP address.
IPv4 ADDRESSING
 IPv4 NAT
• Network Address Translation : Allows several users to share one
address.
• NAT allows an Internet Protocol (IP) network to maintain
public IP addresses separately from private IP addresses. NAT
is a popular technology for Internet connection sharing. It is
also sometimes used in server load balancing applications on
corporate networks.
 Network Address Translation
• Each organization- single IP address
• Within organization – each host with IP
unique to the orgn., from reserved set of IP
addresses
• Each organization- single IP address
• Within organization – each host with IP
unique to the orgn., from reserved set of IP
addresses
NAT Example
Schema diagram
 IPV4 Security Issues
• IPv4 Security Issues

• IPv4 was created with no security in mind. Because of its end-to-end

model, IPv4 relies on the end-hosts to provide the appropriate
security during communication. Below are some security threats on
IPv4:

• Denial of Service Attacks (DOS): it is an attempt to make a computer

resource unavailable to its intended users. One common method
involves flooding the target host with requests, thus preventing valid
network traffic to reach the host

• Viruses & Worms distribution: these malicious code/programs can

propagate themselves from one infected or compromised hosts to
another. This distribution is aided by the small address space of IPv4
• Man-in-the-middle attacks (MITM): an attacker is able to read, insert and
modify at will messages between two hosts without either hosts knowing
that their 3 communication has been compromised. This is because IPv4’s
lack of suitable authentication mechanisms

• Fragmentation attacks: Different Operating system has their own method to

handle large IPv4 packets and this attack exploits that method. For example
the “ping of death” attacks. This attack uses many small fragmented ICMP
packets which when reassembled at the destination exceed the maximum
allowable size for an IP datagram which can cause the victim host to crash,
hang or even reboot

• Port scanning and reconnaissance: this is used to scan for multiple listening
ports on a single, multiple or an entire network hosts. Open ports can be
used to exploit the specific hosts further. Because of the small address
space, port scanning is easy in IPv4 architecture

• ARP Poison: ARP poison attack is to send fake, or ‘spoofed’, ARP messages
to a network. The aim is to associate the attacker’s MAC address with the
IP address of another node. Any traffic meant for that IP address would be
mistakenly sent to the attacker instead
 Features of IPV6
• Larger Address Space
• Aggregation-based address hierarchy
– Efficient backbone routing
• Efficient and Extensible IP datagram
• Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
• Security (IPsec mandatory)
• Mobility
 Why is IPv4 to IPv6
transition so important?
 Why IPv6? Why not IPv5?
• On any IP header, the first 4 bits are reserved for protocol version.
So must be between 0 and 15

• 4: is already used for IPv4

• 5: is reserved for the Stream Protocol (STP,

RFC 1819 / Internet Stream Protocol Version 2)

• The next free number was 6. Hence IPv6 was born!

 Advantages to IPv6
• Larger address space
• Reduce end-to-end delay
• Higher level of security
• Mobility
• No fragmentation
• Network autoconfiguration
128-bit IPv6 Address
3FFE:085B:1F1F:0000:0000:0000:00A9:1234

8 groups of 16-bit hexadecimal numbers separated by “:”

Leading zeros can be removed

3FFE:85B:1F1F::A9:1234

:: = all zeros in one or more group of 16-bit hexadecimal numbers

 IPv6 ADDRESSING
• we would split the 128 bits into 16 octets and
represent each with a decimal number from 0
to 255.
• A typical IPv6 address in this notation would
appear as follows:
• 128.91.45.157.220.40.0.0.0.0.252.87.212.200.
31.255
128.91.45.157.220.40.0.0.0.0.252.87.2
12.200.31.255
 Header comparison
0 15 16 31
vers hlen TOS total length Removed (6)
identification flags flag-offset • ID, flags, flag offset
20 TTL protocol header checksum • TOS, hlen
bytes
source address
• header checksum
destination address

options and padding

Changed (3)
• total length => payload
IPv4 • protocol => next header
• TTL => hop limit
vers traffic class flow-label
Added (2)
payload length next header hop limit
• traffic class
40 source address • flow label
bytes

destination address
Expanded
• address 32 to 128 bits
IPv6
 Major Improvements of
IPv6 Header
• No option field: Replaced by extension
header. Result in a fixed length, 40-byte IP
header.
• No header checksum: Result in fast
processing.
• No fragmentation at intermediate nodes:
Result in fast IP forwarding.
IPv6 Addressing scheme overview
• Unicast
– Global aggregatable
– Site local
– Link local
– IPv4 compatible
• Anycast
• Multicast
• No more broadcast!
• There are no broadcast addresses in IPv6, their function being
superseded by multicast addresses.
 Conclusion

• Yet as a knowledgeable network professional

we need to know about IPv6 issues.
• Now there is only 8% of IPv4 address are free
• In near future not more than one & half year
IPv4 will be filled
• We don’t get address shortage in future with
IPv6
• IPv6 to IPv4 NAT is just an iterim solution, will
not work with all protocols.
 Conclusion

 IPv6 is NEW …
– built on the experiences learned from IPv4
– new features
– large address space
– new efficient header
– autoconfiguration
 … and OLD
– still IP
– build on a solid base
– started in 1995, a lot of implementations and
tests done
 References
• IPng wg:
http://playground.sun.com/pub/ipng/html
• NGtrans: http://www.6bone.net/ngtrans
• IPv6 users site: http://www.ipv6.org
• IPv6 Forum: http://www.ipv6forum.com
• Normos (Internet standards):
http://www.normos.org
Any Questions??