What Is IPv6?

Date First Published: 7th April 2022

Topic: Computer Networking

Subtopic: Internet Protocols

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 5/10

Learn more about what IPv6 is in this article.

Short for Internet Protocol Version 6, IPv6, also known as IPng or IP Next Generation is the more recent and advanced version of an IP address. An IPv6 address looks like: ‘1234:0fb8:0000:0000:0000:ff00:0012:1234’. Instead of a 32-bit address consisting of decimals up to 255, IPv6 is a 128-bit alphanumeric address that is separated with colons and contains hexadecimal. It is represented as eight strings of hexadecimal digits, separated by colons and the full IPv6 address may be shortened. For example, ‘1234:0fb8:0000:0000:0000:ff00:0012:1234’ will become ‘1234:0fb8:ff00:0012:1234:::’. IPv6 addresses are much more complex than IPv4 addresses as they are written in the format: ‘dddd:dddd:dddd:dddd:dddd:dddd:dddd:dddd’. Most protocols and systems support IPv6 and most networks and servers are assigned an IPv4 address and an IPv6 address. The loopback address of IPv6 is 0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001. This address is reserved for loopback and testing purposes on the local computer (localhost).

As the number of devices connected to a network has increased over time, it has greatly increased the number of unique IP addresses required. This has caused a lack of IPv4 addresses, since the total number of IPv4 addresses available is 4,294,967,296 as 256 x 256 x 256 x 256 is equal to this number. With over 7 billion people in the world and a lot of people having more than one connected device, approximately 4.2 billion addresses are not enough. It became evident that much more IP addresses would be required to connect devices to each other than the available IPv4 address space. Up to 340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 unique IP addresses can be assigned by IPv6. In words, that is three hundred and forty quintillion, two hundred and eighty-two quadrillion, three hundred and sixty-six trillion, nine hundred and twenty billion, and nine hundred and thirty-eight million. 2 to the power of 128 is equal to this number. Due to this, it is very unlikely that the number of IPv6 addresses will ever run out in the future.

Note:

Hexadecimal means that the IPv6 address can only contain digits and the letters ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, and ‘F’. It is called hexadecimal as a hexagon has six sides and it can only contain digits and the first six letters of the alphabet.

Additional Features

In addition to larger IP address space, IPv6 provides hierarchical address allocation methods that support route aggregation, putting a limit on the size of routing tables. IPv6 also extends and simplifies the use of multicast addressing and provides additional optimisation for the delivery of services as well as embedded encryption.

What Is My IPv6 Address?

Finding your IPv6 address online can be difficult, especially if your network uses an IPv4 address. This method should allow you to find out your IPv6 address on Windows.

1. Open the Start Menu. It is the Windows button in the bottom-left corner of the screen. The start menu can additionally be displayed by a simple keyboard shortcut. The keyboard shortcut is the button on the keyboard that has the Windows logo on it.
2. Find and open the folder 'Windows System' and right-click on 'Command Prompt' and select 'Run as administrator'.
3. In Command Prompt, copy and paste this command: 'ipconfig/all'. Obviously, do not copy and paste this command with the quotes (').

4. Tap 'Enter' and Command Prompt should return with details of your network. The IPv6 address is listed in the details, as shown below.

5. The 'Link-local IPv6 Address' property is your IPv6 address.

History

IPv6 was designed in 1994 by the IETF as a replacement for IPv4 and in December 1995, it had an official description of RFC 1883. In 1998, the first specification was published as RFC 2460. Several companies, such as Google migrated to IPv6 on 6th June 2012.