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Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)
Addressing, Security and Mobility in IPv6 and IPv
Shadi Ahmed
Computer Science. University of Bedfordshire UoB Sumail, Oman [email protected]
Abstract
In the previous few decades we used IPv4 for communication to send and receive data, but there are some problems that appear with this version in the last few years.
In this document there are discussions of the newer version of IP address (IPv6) and the new feature that provided by it to solve the previous version drawbacks in fields of addressing, security and mobility.
Keywords
IPv4, IPv6, addressing, unicast, milticast, anycast, tunnelling transition, 6to4, 6over4, NAT, SIIT, Dual Stack, BIS, IPsec, Routing Header, Hop-by-Hop, IPv4 Mobility. IPv6 Mobility.
I. INTRODUCTION
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the newest internet protocol that is enhanced to solve some problems that appear in the previous few decades. IPv4 is 4 bytes (32-bits) protocol which allows over 4 billion addresses to be used. This number of addresses will be small according to the fast increase in the networks and also the size of networks. For that IPv6 used to solve this main problem, because it is 16 bytes (128-bits) protocol which allows 340 undecillionth addresses to be used and this number is big enough to solve this problem, may be to the next few decades. IPv6 improves the multicast by increasing the number of addresses for multicast; also it supports anycast by taking control of sending the data to any device in the network. IPv6 increases the size of packets that can be sent over the network. It solves the issue of the traffic too, by tacking control of the packets priority so if there is a heavy traffic in the network the lowest packet priority will be dropped. Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is required in IPv and it is mandatory for authentication and data integrity to ensure that the data at the same size without any changes.
IPv6 improves handling the data by using a simple header and also it improves the routing process by using hierarchal structure for the networks. IPv6 can provide an IP for mobile devices to support mobile computing. So IPv6 is an internet protocol that designed to improve security, scalability, data integrity, multicast, anycast and mobile computing. [1], [17], [21]
II. IPV 6 VERSUS IPV 4
A. Internet Protocols Internet protocols are used to transmit packets of data from the source to the destination. The first IP was IPv4. There were IPs before IPv4 which are IPv0, IPv1, IPv2 and IPv3, but all of those IPs were experimental and the first working version is version 4. Second version is IPv6 and the same as IPv4 there was IPv5 before IPv6 but version 5 was experimental also and version 6 in working version.
B. What is IPv Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the previous generation of internet protocols and it is in the network layer. IPv4 is still used widely till now, but there are many problems that occur that must be solved by replacing it with new technology or combining it with another one. IPv4 is 4-byte (32-bit) addressing protocol which allows over 4 billion of address combinations. When they develop IPv4, it seems that it is the best protocol that solves connection issues. Actually IPv4 earn this reputation for few decades until the mobile technology appears an open the area to increase the devices that connected to the networks. The last 10 years shows that there are so billions of devices that connected to networks around the world and this number of devices is increasing day by day. For that IPv4 has an addressing exhaustion. This addressing exhaustion may cause address block, multidevices will cause heavy traffic and the main issue is IPv4 has the majority in all networks. All of these problems will case explosion in IPv4. [14], [9]
C. IP version 6 IPv6 is 16-byte (128-bits) which allow over 340 undecillion combinations of IP addresses. This number of combination will solve the exhaustion of addresses in IPv4. IPv6 also provides flexible addressing, security, mobility, efficiency and simplicity in providing protocol header.
IPv6 is made to solve all the issues that appear in the previous version such as mobile IP, so it simplified mobility problem that appear in triangular routing. But the main problem that faces IPv6 is deployment problem. IPv4 is taking the majority of work and most of the users are using it. Also
IPv4 cannot communicate with IPv6 without upgrading the network devices to accept IPv6 and work with it. Also they are using IPv4 till now to avoid the cost of upgrading to IPv6. For those issues we face problems in migrating from IPv4 to IPv6, so we must manage availability and connectivity between IPv and IPv6. [14], [9], [21]
D. IPv4 addressing
IPv4 controls the packets to make sure that the device knows which packet can be sent to which destination. It consists of 32-bits divided into 4 sections each section is an octet section and it has 8-bits.
For example (00000000.00000000.00000000.00000000) There are three classes of IPv4:-
Class A: this class assigns the first section for the network for example (11111111.00000000.00000000.00000000)
Class B: this class assigns the first 2 sections for the network for example (1111.1111.0000.0000)
Class C: this class assigns the first 3 sections for network for example (1111.1111.1111.0000)
This classes has problem in the number of addresses that generated cannot be enough for the users as we mentioned before. [14], [19]
E. IPv6 addressing
IPv6 has different addressing technique. It has 128-bits divided into 8 sections each section is a hexadecimal and it has 16-bits. The 128-bits divided into two portions first one is 64- bits and it's assigned to the network and the second one is 64- bits also and assigned to identify the interfaces.
There are three types of IPv6 which are:-
Unicast: this type is used to identifies single interface and it has three different scopes
o Link Local: this scope is used to communicate over a single link and packets cannot be forwarded between source and destination.
o Unique Local: this scope is approachable over specific link and it is not routable over the internet.
o Global: this scope is approachable over the internet.
Multicast: this type is used to identifies set of interfaces ant it has five different scopes
o Link Local: this scope is used as in link local scope in unicast type.
o Organization: this scope is used inside the organizations and acts the same like unique local in unicast type.
o Global: this scope is used as in global scope in unicast type.
o Interface Local: this scope is used for transmission of multicast within a single node.
o Site Local: this scope is used in a single place.
Anycast: this type is used to assign multiple interfaces to multicast the data. It is used to transmit the data from a single node to the nearest multiple nodes. [14], [18]
F. Transition from IPv4 to IPv There are some problems that faces the transition from IPv to IPv6 which are the widely use of IPv4, the mechanism of transition and the cost of transition too, so we need to have Internet Communication Protocols (ICPs) to provide the existing services for IPv4 and IPv6 at the same time. Also we need to study address mapping for IPv4 and IPv6. Actually there are many transition techniques that can be used such as the techniques that are mentioned below: [14], [21]
6to4 technique
In this technique IPv6 packets are transmitted inside IPv packets. It is used as tunneling mechanism and to communicate the IPv6 networks over IPv4 network. The IPv4 packet is used to define the source and destination in its header. This technique has stable and secure communication in tunneling between two points only and provides easy deployment for IPv6. [6], [12]
6over4 technique
In this technique two IPv6 hosts can communicate over IPv4 domain, also IPv6 packets are transmitted inside IPv packets with tunneling mechanism same as 6to4. 6over creates virtual link by using IPv4 multicast. The difference between this technique and 6to4 technique that 6over 4 is used to make connections for multiple IPv6 domains, but the connection is made only with IPv4 networks. [7], [12]
Network Address Translation (NAT)
There are two types of NAT, one is IPv4 NAT and this translates IPv4 address into IPv4 address and the other one translates IPv6 address into IPv4 address. Last type of NAT allows the IPv6 host to communicate from the inner network to IPv6 host at the outer network. This technique is use to communicate IPv6 host to IPv4 host, but it needs to have Application Layer Gateway (ALG) that includes IP addresses. [8], [12]
Stateless IP/ICMP Translation Algorithm (SIIT)
This algorithm is used to translate IPv4 address into IPv address. After that the packets will transmit into IP/ICMP translator to translate headers of packets from IPv4 to IPv6 and vice versa, also it will translate the addresses in these headers between IPv4 and IPv6. [13]
Dual Stack Hosts
There are many techniques we can use in Dual Stack Hosts such as Bump in the Stack (BIS) technique. In this technique
it is connected to its home network or other foreign network, also mobile node can request that message. If mobile node is connected to the home agent, it can work without using mobility service, but if the mobile node is connected to a foreign network it will gain CoA to the foreign network, then mobile node registers the CoA with its home network. Then when data sent to mobile node the Home Agent intercepts data and tunneled it to the mobile node CoA, after that the data received by tunneling end point which it can be Foreign Agent or mobile node itself. On the other hand the mobile node sends data using standard IP routing technique. [10], [15]
B. IPv6 Mobility
The basics of IPv6 mobility is the same as IPv4 mobility, but IPv6 mobility has more improvements such as Foreign Agent is not needed for communication and mobile node can be connected by itself without the needing for special devices. Also the packets can be sent without needing IPv encapsulation. [10], [2], [15]
Mobile node should be addressed at the Home Agent with CoA (binding), also mobile node send the binding update to the home agent and the home agent send binding acknowledgement back to the mobile node. Mobile node can make binding with more than one CoA when it is connected to a foreign network, and it can accept many packets from different CoAs. Mobile node also can know the home agent IP address even when it is connected to foreign network and this can be, because mobile node support "dynamic home agent address discover" mechanism which is the mobile node can have multiple home agents. [10], [2], [15]
Mobile nodes can be connected with the correspondent nodes in large-scale with two types of connections. First one is Route Optimization. This connection is used shortest path to decrease the latency in routing packets. Also in this connection the correspondent node can connect to mobile node CoA directionally. When sending packets from Correspondent node to mobile node the correspondent node checks first for the binding, when the binding found it routs the packet directly to mobile node. The other type is bidirectional tunneling, in this type packet can be sent from the correspondent node to the home agent and the home agent will tunnel the packet to the mobile node and if the mobile node wants to send a packet the previous process will reversed which is that, mobile node will tunnel the packet to the home agent and the home agent will send the packet to the correspondent node. [15]
VI. CONCLUTION
IPv6 is the new generation of IP addresses. It solves more issues that occur in the previous version (IPv4). As you can see IPv6 is more secure according to its addressing technique, and most of the issues that face IPv6 is because of the previous version (IPv4). The previous version is widely used and the IPv6 must communicate with IPv4, this communication result the same problems that face IPv4. So we must deploy IPv6 as large-scale deployment which it will be costly. IPv6 also solve problems in mobility communication with dispensing the foreign agent that cause latency and security issues in IPv
mobility. In the future IPv6 will be the technology to communicate without IPv
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