This is an old revision of this page, as edited by PierreAbbat (talk | contribs) at 08:02, 8 May 2002 (writing IPv6 addresses). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 08:02, 8 May 2002 by PierreAbbat (talk | contribs) (writing IPv6 addresses)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)IPv6 is version 6 of the Internet Protocol.
IPv6 is the second version of the Internet Protocol to be widely deployed, and is expected to form the basis for future expansion (as of 2001) of the Internet, replacing the previous standard, IPv4.
The compelling reason behind the formation of IPv6 was lack of address space, especially in the heavily populated countries of Asia such as India and China among others which do not have enough address space for their use.
IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long and are written in hexadecimal with colons. For example, 243f:6a88:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7344. If a 16-bit group is 0000, it may be omitted, and if more than two consecutive colons result from this omission, they may be reduced to two colons, as long as there is only one group of more than two consecutive colons. Thus 0588:2353::1428:57ab is the same as 0588:2353:0000:0000:0000:0000:1428:57ab, but 3906::25de::cade is invalid. If the address is an IPv4 address in disguise, the last 32 bits may be written in decimal; thus ::ffff:192.168.89.9 is the same as ::ffff:c0a8:5909.