		              
                                                     
                                                       
               ۰߰     ܰ۰  
             ۱      ܱ߰    ۰
             ۱          ۱      ۰  
                 ܰ߱    ߰۲    
              Outbreak Magazine Issue #12 - Article 12 of 18
           '~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~' 

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-= Future Network Protocols?

Recently I was reading up on network protocols and discovered something new. 
IPv6 currently we use IPv4 and are running out of address's. so internet 
architectures set out to create a brand new set of protocols. They dubbed 
this IPv6. They figure by 2010 most will be using IPv6. The differences in 
IPv6 from IPv4 are these.

- 8 sections instead of 4
- 128-bit address instead of 32-bit (IPv4)
- A lot more possibilities of addresses. The exact number hasn't been 
  calculated to my knowledge but its more then: 
  340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 
- Larger hex-digit range  
  ( 0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 to FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF )
- Improved format

The new IP addresses will be even harder to remember then what you're used too. 
Plus they are separated with colons not commas. Here is an example of 
an IPv6 address: EFDC:BA62:7654:3201:EFDC:BA72:7654:3210 - have fun 
memorizing something like that. as if 12.235.43.32 wasn't hard enough.

The improved format of IPv6 also comes in handy with the speed/congestion parts 
of networking and connectivity. The streamlined packet headers make the store 
and forward process go faster.

Faster ways of writing the address that IPv6 has created

-- The leading zero (0000) shortcut

If you need to write an IP where one group is all zero's you can write just one. 
saves a little time.

-- The double colon (::) shortcut
 
The double colon shortcut in an address can replace on sequence of single zeros 
and colons with a double colon.
For example: 1060:0:0:0:6:600:200C:326B can be written like this : 
1060::6:600:200C:326B

-- You can also combine IPv4 and IPv6 by placing 0000: 's before the IP like 
this = IP: 130.103.40.5 can be converted to: 
0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:130.103.40.5 or ::130.103.40.5.


Just like IPv4 you have reserved addresses such as

--- The unspecified address: the unspecified address is 0:0:0:0:0:0:0 (or ::) it 
can be used by a system that needs to send a packet for broadcasting or DHCP 
clients request but hasn't yet received an address. It can't be used as a 
destination address.

--- The loop back address: the loopback address is 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 or ::1 it acts 
Just like 127.0.0.1 as far as I can tell.


Well that's all I want to write for now. But it's an interesting topic. Read up some 
more on it sometime.
-=[ foned (admin@foned.net)
