Internet Protocol version 6


Internet Protocol version 6

(networking, protocol)(IPv6, IPng, IP next generation) Themost viable candidate to replace the current Internet Protocol. The primary purpose of IPv6 is to solve theproblem of the shortage of IP addresses.

The following features have been purposed: 16-byte addressesinstead of the current four bytes; embedded encryption - a32-bit Security Association ID (SAID) plus a variable lengthinitialisation vector in packet headers; userauthentication (a 32-bit SAID plus variable lengthauthentication data in headers); autoconfiguration(currently partly handled by Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol); support for delay-sensitive traffic - a 24 bitflow ID field in headers to denote voice or video, etc.

One possible solution is based on the TUBA protocol (RFC1347, 1526, 1561) which is itself based on the OSIConnectionless Network Protocol (CNLP). Another is TP/IX(RFC 1475) which changes TCP and UDP headers to give a64-bit IP address, a 32-bit port number, and a 64 bitsequence number.

RFC 1550 is a white paper on IPng.

IPv6.org.

["Doubts About IPng could create TCP/IP chaos", Johna TillJohnson, Data Communications, Nov 1994].