A brief on the issues surrounding the migration of the Internet to IPv6.

1. IPocalypse
2011
David Hyland-Wood
University of Mary Washington
Sunday, February 20, 2011

2. IPocalypse
• The destruction of the Earth by use of
iTunes, as foreshadowed by the iTunes End
User License Agreement.
Sunday, February 20, 2011

3. IPocalypse
• The destruction of the Earth by use of
iTunes, as foreshadowed by the iTunes End
User License Agreement.
Sunday, February 20, 2011

4. IPocalypse
• When your iPod / MP3 player suddenly and
unexpectedly wipes out all your music,
causing fear, panic, and usually mass
amounts of illegal downloading to replace
the lost songs.
Sunday, February 20, 2011

5. IPocalypse
• When your iPod / MP3 player suddenly and
unexpectedly wipes out all your music,
causing fear, panic, and usually mass
amounts of illegal downloading to replace
the lost songs.
Sunday, February 20, 2011

6. Sunday, February 20, 2011

7. IPocalypse
• A phenomenon marked by exhaustion of IP
addresses that identify destinations for
digital traffic.
Sunday, February 20, 2011

8. APNIC to
allocate all
addresses by
June 2011
3 February 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011

9. IP version 4
• 32 bit addresses, e.g.
11011111 00001110 10000000 00000001
= 223.14.128.1
• “Dotted quad” notation: each segment 0-255d
• 2 ≈ 4 Billion possible addresses
32
Sunday, February 20, 2011

10. IP datagram format
IP protocol version 32 bits
number total datagram
header length head. type of length (bytes)
ver length
(bytes) len service for
“type” of data fragment
16-bit identifier flgs fragmentation/
offset
max number time to upper header reassembly
remaining hops live layer checksum
(decremented at
32 bit source IP address
each router)
32 bit destination IP address
upper layer protocol
to deliver payload to Options (if any) E.g. timestamp,
record route
how much overhead data taken, specify
with TCP? (variable length, list of routers
r 20 bytes of TCP typically a TCP to visit.
r 20 bytes of IP
or UDP segment)
r = 40 bytes + app
layer overhead Network Layer 4-
Sunday, February 20, 2011

11. IP version 6
• 128 bit addresses, e.g.
2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:0000:0370:7334
Can omit leading zeros in each group
2001:db8::370:7334
Double colons indicate all zeros
• 8 groups of 16-bit hexadecimal values
Sunday, February 20, 2011

12. IP version 6
• 128 bit addresses have two parts:
- 64-bit network prefix
- 64-bit host address part
2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:0000:0370:7334
network prefix host part
Sunday, February 20, 2011

13. IP version 6
• 2 128 ≈ 340 undecillion possible addresses
Sunday, February 20, 2011

14. IP version 6
• 2 128 ≈ 340 undecillion possible addresses
Sunday, February 20, 2011

15. How many soccer balls?
Sunday, February 20, 2011

16. A line of soccer balls would stretch around the
circumference of the known universe
- many billions of times.
Sunday, February 20, 2011

17. Maybe smaller components?
Sunday, February 20, 2011

18. An IPv6 address for every atom on the surface of the Earth
would allow more than 100 more Earths to be covered.
Sunday, February 20, 2011

19. 340 undecillion
282 decellion
366 nonillion
920 octillion
938 septillion
463 sextillion
463 quintillion
374 quadrillion
607 trillion
431 billion
768 million
211 thousand
456
Sunday, February 20, 2011

20. IPv6 Header (Cont)
Priority: identify priority among datagrams in flow
Flow Label: identify datagrams in same “flow.”
(concept of“flow” not well defined).
Next header: identify upper layer protocol for data
Network Layer 4-
Sunday, February 20, 2011

21. Changes from IPv4
• No fragmentation allowed
• Checksum: removed entirely to reduce
processing time at each hop
• Options: allowed, but outside of header,
indicated by “Next Header” field
• ICMPv6: new version of ICMP
• additional message types, e.g. “Packet Too Big”
• multicast group management functions
Network Layer 4-
Sunday, February 20, 2011

22. Changes from IPv4
• No Network Address Translation (NAT)
• Automatic Address Assignment via ICMPv6
Network Layer 4-
Sunday, February 20, 2011

23. Sunday, February 20, 2011

24. Sunday, February 20, 2011

25. Concerns
• Computers and common operating
systems - ready
• Mobile phones - will need eventual upgrade
(3G-4G)
• Routers, “cable modems” - may need
upgrade
• Software - will need upgrades
Sunday, February 20, 2011

26. Concerns
• Server software will also be effected:
• Web servers (Facebook, Google, etc)
• iTunes
• Server operators must make code-level
changes if IPv4 addresses are hard-coded.
• All Internet servers be prepared to serve
IPv6-only clients by January 2012
Sunday, February 20, 2011

27. Impact
• You may not be able to get/make a new
Website until the migration is complete
(starting later this year).
• ISPs have a lot of work to do.
• Software vendors need to check their
code.
Sunday, February 20, 2011

28. World IPv6 Day
• 8 June 2011 (00:00 to 23:59 UTC)
• Worldwide test of IPv6 across the entire
Internet.
• Among others, Facebook, Google,Yahoo,
Cisco, Akamai Technologies, Limelight
Networks, W3C, Bing, Tom's Hardware,
Rackspace, and Juniper have committed to
participating in the experiment.
Sunday, February 20, 2011

29. Sunday, February 20, 2011

30. IPocalypse
2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011

31. Credits - CC Licensed
Matrix Code http://www.flickr.com/photos/trinity-of-one/20562069/sizes/o/
Soccer balls http://www.flickr.com/photos/shibuya246/3709172817/
Sand dunes http://www.flickr.com/photos/79721788@N00/5282834545/sizes/l/
Stars http://www.flickr.com/photos/odalaigh/1482685365/sizes/l/
Credits - Fair Use of Copyright
Death of the Music Industry http://www.flickr.com/photos/edcotton/5448870273/
Ipocalpyse definitions http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=iPocalypse
IPv6/IPv4 tunnel http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/cisco/chapters/158720181X/graphics/17fig11.jpg
IPv4/IPv6 datagram slides Modified from Kurose and Ross, http://wps.aw.com/aw_kurose_network_4/
Sunday, February 20, 2011