Difference between revisions 6282421 and 6282681 on simplewiki

'''IPV6''' (or '''Internet Protocol Version 6''') is a [[Internet protocol|protocol]] which allows each computer to have a [[:wikt:unique|unique]] name on the [[internet]]. Each computer is issued an unique set of 8 groups of [[Hexadecimal numeral system|hexadecimal]] numbers called an address.  The older IP address system is called IPv4 and used a series of 12 [[Decimal|numbers]], like "192.168.1.254".<ref name="IPV4">{{Cite web|url=https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc791|title=IPV4}}</ref> Since IPv4 was limited to only 4.3 billion addresses, IPv6 was needed to make more addresses that could be used. IPv6 allows for about 3.4 x 10<sup>38</sup> (or 340 [[undecillion]]/[[sextillion]]) unique addresses. More addresses were needed because there were more things that could use the internet. On July 14, 2017, IPv6 was used for the first time.<ref name="IPV_6">{{Cite web|url=https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2017/07/rfc-8200-ipv6-has-been-standardized/|title=IPVP6}}</ref>

IPV6 was made to allow a computer to send a [[Packet (computing)|packet]] to many computers at the same time, which is called multicasting. Older IPv4 address could still use multicasting, but it had to be added on later. IPv6 allows computers to set up an network without using a [[router]]. IPv6 also is able to protect a user's privacy by creating and forgetting IP addresses regularly.

== Address format ==

An example of an IPv6 address:
<code>2001:0000:3238:DFE1:0063:0000:0000:FEFB</code>

IPV6 has an address format to it. The first four groups of numbers are a network's identifier.<ref name="IPV6">{{Cite web|url=https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/STCMML8/com.ibm.storage.ts3500.doc/opg_3584_IPv4_IPv6_prefix_subnet_mask.html|title=IPV6 Addresses}}</ref> (<code>2001:0000:3238:DFE1</code> in the example above.) Those bits will remain the same for each network. The second four groups of numbers (<code>0063:0000:0000:FEFB</code>) in the address is the name of the computer.

== References ==
{{reflist}}