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2.8.4. IPv6 Addressing

Why IPv6: IPv4 has approximately 4.3 billion addresses. IPv6 has 340 undecillion (3.4 × 10^38). Address exhaustion—and the complexity of NAT—drove IPv6 adoption.

IPv6 Format:
  • 128 bits, written as eight groups of four hexadecimal digits
  • Full: 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334
  • Compressed (omit leading zeros, :: for consecutive zero groups): 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334
IPv6/IPv4 Coexistence:
  • Dual stack: Run both IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously (most common transition approach)
  • Tunneling: Encapsulate IPv6 packets inside IPv4 for transport across IPv4-only networks
  • NAT64: Translate between IPv6-only and IPv4-only hosts
Alvin Varughese
Written byAlvin Varughese
Founder•15 professional certifications