Comparative Study of

IPv4 and IPv6 Network Protocol

Mr. Sudhakar R. Mishra
M Tech ,WCE Sangli
Under Guidance of

Prof. S.P. Sonavane

WCE Sangli

Mr. Anil Kumar Gupta

CDAC Pune

IP Protocol

Primary network protocol used on the Internet

Data on an Internet Protocol network is organized into
packets
Functions at layer 3 of the OSI model

IPv4 Overview

32 bit Addressing scheme

Host address, e.g., 192.168.1.1
Network address, e.g., 192.168.1.0/24 or 192.168.1.0
255.255.255.0
Host address is the first address in subnetwork, e.g. 192.168.1.0
Broadcast address is the last address in the subnetwork, e.g.,
192.168.1.255

IPv4 Delivery Model

Best effort service

Does NOT guarantee:

Network will do its best to get packet to destination

Any maximum latency or even ultimate success
Sender will be informed if packet doesnt make it
Packets will arrive in same order sent
Just one copy of packet will arrive

Implications

Scales very well

Higher level protocols must make up for shortcomings

Reliably delivering ordered sequence of bytes TCP

Some services not feasible

Latency or bandwidth guarantees

Network Address Translation

To prevent the fast depletion of IPv4 addresses

10.0.0.4

10.0.0.1
Source
Computer

Source
Computer's
IP Address

Source
Computer's
Port

NAT Router's
IP Address

NAT Router's
Assigned
Port Number

10.0.0.1

400

24.2.249.4

10.0.0.2

50

24.2.249.4

10.0.0.3

3750

24.2.249.4

10.0.0.4

206

24.2.249.4

IP Fragmentation

If IP packet is longer than the MTU, the

router breaks packet into smaller packets

Called IP fragments
Fragments are still IP packets
Earlier in Mod A, fragmentation in TCP
MTU
IP Packet

3
Fragmentation

2
IP Packets

IP De-fragmentation

Internet layer process on destination host

defragments, restoring the original packet
IP Defragmentation only occurs once
Source
Host
Internet
Process

Destination
Host
Internet
Process

De fragmentation

IPv4 Limitation's

Exhaustion of the IPv4 address space

Simpler configuration

Security at the Internet layer

Difficult to add support for future needs

IPv6 over IPv4

Larger Address Space

Efficient and Extensible IP datagram

Efficient Route Computation and

Aggregation

Improved Host and Router Discovery

New Stateless and State full Address

Auto configuration

Required Security for IP datagrams

Easy renumbering

IPv4 & IPv6 Header Comparison

IPv6 Header

IPv4 Header
Version

IHL

Type of Service

Identification

Total Length

Flags

Version

Traffic Class

Fragment
Offset
Payload Length

Time to Live

Protocol

Hop Limit

Source Address

Destination Address
Options

Legend

Next
Header

Header Checksum

Source Address

Padding

- fields name kept from IPv4 to IPv6

- fields not kept in IPv6
- Name & position changed in IPv6
- New field in IPv6

Flow Label

Destination Address

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

Types of IPv6 Addresses

Unicast

Address of a single interface

Delivery to single interface

Multicast

Address of a set of interfaces

Delivery to all interfaces in the set

Anycast

Address of a set of interfaces

Delivery to a single interface in the set

No more broadcast addresses

IPv6 Addressing Rules

128 bits (or 16 bytes) long: four times as long as its

predecessor.
2128 : about 340 billion billion billion billion different addresses
Colon hexadecimal notation:

addresses are written using 32 hexadecimal digits.

digits are arranged into 8 groups of four to improve the readability.
Groups are separated by colons

2001:0718:1c01:0016:020d:56ff:fe77:52a3

IPv6 Address Notation: Example

128.91.45.157.220.40.0.0.0.0.252.87.212.200.31.255

Neighbor Discovery (RFC 2461)

Protocol built on top of ICMPv6 (RFC 2463)

Combination of IPv4 protocols (ARP, ICMP,)

Neighbor Discovery:
Determines the link-layer address of a neighbor on the same link,
Duplicate Address Detection
Finds neighbor routers, Keeps track of neighbors

Defines 5 ICMPv6 packet types

Router Solicitation / Router Advertisements
Neighbor Solicitation / Neighbor Advertisements
Redirect

IPv6 Auto-Configuration

Stateless (RFC2462)
Host autonomously configures its own Link-Local address
Router solicitation are sent by booting nodes to request
RAs for configuring the interfaces.

RA
indicates
SUBNET
PREFIX

SUBNET PREFIX +
MAC ADDRESS

Stateful
DHCPv6 (under definition at IETF)

Renumbering
Hosts renumbering is done by modifying the RA to
announce the old prefix with a short lifetime and the new
prefix.
Router renumbering protocol (RFC 2894), to allow domaininterior routers to learn of prefix introduction / withdrawal

SUBNET PREFIX +
MAC ADDRESS

At boot time, an IPv6 host

build a Link-Local
address, then its global
IPv6 address(es) from RA

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.

Differences in IPv4 and IPv6

Feature
Source and destination
address
IPSec
Payload ID for QoS in the
header
Fragmentation
Header checksum
Resolve IP address to a
link layer address
Determine the address of
the best default gateway
Send traffic to all nodes
on a subnet
Configure address
Manage local subnet
group membership

IPv4

IPv6

32 bits

128 bits

Optional

required

No identification

Using Flow label field

Both router and the

sending hosts

Only supported at the

sending hosts

included

Not included

broadcast ARP request

Multicast Neighbor
Solicitation message

ICMP Router
Discovery(optional)

ICMPv6 Router Solicitation

and Router Advertisement
(required)

Broadcast

Link-local scope all-nodes

multicast address

Manually or DHCP

Autoconfiguration

(IGMP)

Multicast Listener
Discovery (MLD)

Challenges for IPv6

Deployment Cost

Security Issues

No Customer Demand

Lack of IPv6 security training/education

Bugs in new code