IPv6 Protocol Review

IPv6 - A Brief Review of Protocol Features

Massively increased address space -- most pessimistic view is 1564 addresses per square meter for the planet earth.
Security at the protocol level -- both encryption and authentication mechanisms. Can apply to only the header, or entire datagram.
Quality of Service fields in headers to distinguish between batch (ftp-like) and realtime (audio, video, chat) priorities. Several levels available.
Compatible with IPv4 nodes
No en-route packet fragmentation (i.e all fragmentation done at source, re-assembly at destination). MTU discovery recommended.
Expanded capibility for multicast, anycast. Allowing packets to be directed to groups (i.e send this video packet to several disparate destinations around the world)

IPv6 Update

What's happened since June, 1997?

(Remember the Rat Book?) http://cellworks.washington.edu/sage/1997/06/ipv6_i.html

Most importantly, "The core set of IPv6 protocols were made an IETF Draft Standard on August 10, 1998" (from playground.sun.com/pub/ipng/html/ ) The next step is to be a full Internet Standard.

Protocol changes/enhancements: (RFC's available at http://playground.sun.com/pub/ipng/html/specs/specifications.html )

The RFC for IPv6 protocol specification is new as of December, 1998
Work has been done on address allocation mechanisms.
Work has been done on multi-homed addressing mechanisms.
ICMPv6 was updated
JUMBOGRAMS - ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2675.txt -- 'A "jumbogram" is an IPv6 packet containing a payload longer than 65,535 octets.' Will allow UDP and TCP packets up to 4 Gigabytes to traverse networks. Still limited by the MTU of the network path. Remember MTU Discovery will has the capability to determine the maximum MTU from the source to the destination, given multiple paths exist on the network from the source to the destination.
Header compression mechanisms have been suggested for slow links -- dialup and wireless are obvious uses.
A new RFC for Generic Packet Tunneling has been submitted (RFC 2473)
Programming interfaces have been specified. W. R. Stevens was the primary author on these, defining the socket interfaces.

IPv6 Who's Who

IPv6 - Who's Who

IPv6 Forum - 51 founding members. From computer manufacturers, software, phone to network hardware companies. "A world-wide consortium of leading Internet vendors, Research & Education Networks
are shaping the IPv6 FORUM, with a clear mission to promote IPv6"

http://www.6bone.net/ - testbed for deployment of IPv6

http://www.ipv6.org/ - you may run across this one, though the site didn't appear very up to date as of 2/7/00.

IPv6 Obstacles

IPv6 - Obstacles To Deployment

Entire page quoted from http://www.ipv6forum.com/navbar/technology/jbpminterview.htm

The IPv6 Deployment Group is a network of a world-wide network of researchers and engineers that discuss on a daily basis the IPv6 technology practical steps of the IPv6 implemetations. This board is co-chaired by Jim Bound (JB), senior member of the technical staff at Compaq, and Perry E. Metzger.

Interviewed by Latif LADID (LL), President of the IPv6 Forum

LL: What do you consider the greatest obstacle to deploying IPv6 right now?

JB: Let me just list some obstacles, not in any priority, that might be a challenge for rapid deployment of IPv6:

Lack of Host (server and client) and Router vendors shipping IPv6 integrated in their base product set. The ISPs cannot deploy IPv6 without products. Vendors need to ship products.
Entities unable to obtain a real IPv6 address from their providers or ISPs, who in turn cannot get a real IPv6 address from any Internet Registry today
The stop-gap for the IPv4 address shortage is NAT which has been widely deployed, until those users feel the pain of not being able to sustain the needs for end-to-end networking (e.g. IPSec, VOIP, real-time video/audio, multicast) they will continue to feel good about NAT.
Many Enterprises have not heard the IPv6 story and do not know yet that a solution is here for their intranet and their connection to the Internet which will not require NAT. So lack of IPv6 "marketing" to real users who want new solutions. The IPv6 story needs to be told with a marketing and business message, not a technical message.
The Year 2000 problem is the focus of many entities now and updating their Networking Infrastructure will be next. Once the Y2K problem is resolved, more attention units will be given to the YV4 problem space as one of my IETF colleagues referenced it one time.

IPv6 will win

IPv6 - Why it will succeed, and very quickly

WIRELESS!

In case you haven't noticed, everybody and their mother, and their grandmother has some form of wireless device, whether it's a cell phone or a pager, or a wireless pda. The needs for address space and security are phenominal.

From: http://www.etsi.org/press/3gpp-ipv6.htm

       "It is expected that as mobile phones gain access to Internet services, there will be an
       unprecedented growth in the demand of new Internet addresses as well as easier
       administration and tighter security.

       The world of mobile Internet is a step closer. IPv6 Forum contribution to the 3GPP work will
       allow the application of global standards in the next generation Internet domain. By
       committing itself to sharing with the other 3GPP partners its Internet expertise, IPv6 Forum
       will allow the Partners to integrate mobile Internet access and lead the way to Third Generation
       Mobile Communication.

       3GPP warmly welcomes IPv6 Forum. , remarked Mr Rosenbrock. This partnership
       agreement will allow faster integration of the Internet in the 3GPP. As the new economy
       moves to "all-IP", the common 3GPP and IPv6 standards will further enhance the
       business-to-business and business-to-consumer applications using 3GPP and IPv6 based
       mobile communications systems."