IPv6 address

An Internet Protocol Version 6 address (IPv6 address) is a numerical label that is used to identify a network interface of a computer or a network node participating in an IPv6 computer network. An Internet Protocol Version 6 address (IPv6 address) is a numerical label that is used to identify a network interface of a computer or a network node participating in an IPv6 computer network. An IP address serves the purpose of identifying an individual network interface of a host, locating it on the network, and thus permitting the routing of IP packets between hosts. For routing, IP addresses are present in fields of the packet header where they indicate the source and destination of the packet. IPv6 is the successor to the first addressing infrastructure of the Internet, Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). In contrast to IPv4, which defined an IP address as a 32-bit value, IPv6 addresses have a size of 128 bits. Therefore, IPv6 has a vastly enlarged address space compared to IPv4. IPv6 addresses are classified by the primary addressing and routing methodologies common in networking: unicast addressing, anycast addressing, and multicast addressing. A unicast address identifies a single network interface. The Internet Protocol delivers packets sent to a unicast address to that specific interface. An anycast address is assigned to a group of interfaces, usually belonging to different nodes. A packet sent to an anycast address is delivered to just one of the member interfaces, typically the nearest host, according to the routing protocol's definition of distance. Anycast addresses cannot be identified easily, they have the same format as unicast addresses, and differ only by their presence in the network at multiple points. Almost any unicast address can be employed as an anycast address. A multicast address is also used by multiple hosts, which acquire the multicast address destination by participating in the multicast distribution protocol among the network routers. A packet that is sent to a multicast address is delivered to all interfaces that have joined the corresponding multicast group.IPv6 does not implement broadcast addressing. Broadcast's traditional role is subsumed by multicast addressing to the all-nodes link-local multicast group ff02::1. However, the use of the all-nodes group is not recommended, and most IPv6 protocols use a dedicated link-local multicast group to avoid disturbing every interface in the network. An IPv6 address consists of 128 bits. For each of the major addressing and routing methodologies, various address formats are recognized by logically dividing the 128 address bits into bit groups and establishing rules for associating the values of these bit groups with special addressing features. Unicast and anycast addresses are typically composed of two logical parts: a 64-bit network prefix used for routing, and a 64-bit interface identifier used to identify a host's network interface.