IPv4 vs IPv6: Top 10 Differences That You Must Know

[Batu69]

The use of the internet is growing rapidly and most of the people use the internet now. In the earlier times a small proportion of the people were using the internet but today it has become an essential part of our lives. We can find answers to almost every question through the internet. You can visit any website according to our need. Simply type the website name and you get the website loaded on your browser.

 

But the most important role in this internet game is played by IP address which stands for Internet Protocol. Only because of the IP addresses, all the computers can communicate with the other. Every internet connection has a unique IP address. Do you know your device’s IP address? Just Google, “What is my IP address” and you will get your IP address.

 

 

The first major version of the Internet Protocol was IPv4. IP addresses provided by IPv4 are in binary numbers. But now, a new version of IP address has come up. Well, due to the growing number of Internet connections, the IP addresses of IPv4 were running out due to which IPv6 came into the existence to fulfill the requirement of the IP addresses.

 

Not only for providing the IP addresses but IPv6 features are also somewhat different from those of the IPv4. There are many differences between these two different versions of IP. If you want to know the difference between IPv4 and IPv6 then this article will help you.

Difference Between IPv4 and IPv6

This article contains top 10 differences between IPv4 and IPv6 which you should know. So, let’s explore them.

1. IPv4 vs IPv6: Address

The major difference between IPv4 and IPv6 is their address structure. The main reason due to which IPv6 came into existence is to fulfill the need of the IP addresses for different devices across the world as IP addresses provided by IPv4 were not sufficient.

 

So, the address structure of IPv6 is far different from that of IPv4 so that it can accommodate as many IP addresses as required. The address of IPv4 is 32-bits long and is composed of host portion and network. All the IPv4 addresses are categorized into different classes on the basis of few initial values. The form of IPv4 addresses is like aaa.aaa.aaa.aaa where 0<=aaa<=255 and each aaa is a decimal digit. There are 4, 294, 967, 296 IPv4 addresses in total.

 

 

Now come to the address structure of IPv6. Well, the number of IPv6 addresses are way more than IPv4. It utilizes 128 bit IP addresses. So, the total number of IPv6 address are 2^128 which is equal to 340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This huge number ensures that there are enough IP addresses to keep the internet running smoothly for a really long time.

2. IPv4 vs IPv6: Address Scope and Address Types

All of the addresses provided by IPv4 are global. But some of the address ranges are designated to the private. The address scope is not applicable to the unicast addresses in IPv4.

 

But in the case of IPv6, address scope is a part of the architecture. There are two address scopes of unicast addresses, one is global and the other one is local. And the multicast addresses have 14 scopes.

 

The address types in IPv4 are unicast, multicast and broadcast. Whereas there are multicast, unicast, and anycast address types in IPv6.

3. IPv4 vs IPv6: HostTable

Host table is supported by IPv4. This table is quite important and is used by socket name resolver before a DNS lookup or after the DNS lookup fails. It is a configuration table which associates and internet address with the host name, for ex- 198.162.1.1.

 

On the other hand, host table is not supported in IPv6 and because of this, the user will have to configure AAAA records in DNS for the domain resolution in IPv6. The DNS can be locally run on the same system or you can even run it on a different system.

 

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4. IPv4 vs IPv6: ICMP and IGMP

To communicate the network information, IPv4 uses ICMP which stands for Internet Control Message Protocol. Well, in IPv6 too, the same is used to communicate network information. But the IPv6 version of ICMP i.e. ICMPv6 has some additional attributes. Also, new codes and types are also added for the support of neighbor discovery and other related functions.

 

 

IGMP has two functions in IPv4 hosts viz.  to inform IPv4 routers of existing multicast group listeners and to find the host that want traffic for the particular multicast Group. But in IPv6, IGMP has been replaced by the MLD(Multicast Listener Discovery) protocol for IPv6. It does all the things which IGMP does for IPv4 but it also uses ICMPv6 by adding some MLD-specific ICMPv6 type values.

5. IPv4 vs IPv6: Private And Public Addresses

All the IP addresses provided by IPv4 are public but there are three ranges of the IP addresses which are not public and are private addresses. This private addresses can not be routed across the internet and are only used by the organizations. These private addresses are designated as private by IETF RFC 1918. These private ranges are 10.*.*.*(10/8), 172.16.0.0 through 172.31.255.255(172.16/12), and 192.168.*.* (192.168/16).

 

In IPv6, there is also the similar concept and there are some differences too. There are temporary addresses and the public addresses. The temporary addresses are different from the private ones provided by IPv4. The temporary addresses can be globally routed and for the privacy concerns, these addresses are meant to hide or shield the identity of the client when it starts a communication. Also, the lifetime of these temporary addresses is limited.

6. IPv4 vs IPv6: Security

IPv4 is less secure. IPv6 has more security features. See, IPv4 was created a long time ago and it is already overloaded. The systems are provided IP addresses in IPv4 by IP sharing because IP addresses are few and the number of connections is very large. More than one systems have the same IP address. For instance, If at your home 2 or more PCs to the same WiFi network then you will find that all of them have the same IP address which means a hacker can access more systems with a single IP address.

 

IPv6 has stronger security. It has implemented powerful techniques for authentication and encryption.

7. IPv4 vs IPv6: Packet structure

An IPv4 packet has two parts: Header and data section. IPv6 packet also has two parts: Header and Payload.

The IPv4 Header structure has 14 fields out of which 13 are compulsory.

 

IPv6 Header has minimal fields. The Header takes 320 bits of IPv6 packet and the payload should be less than 64KB. However, with Jumbo payload option the size of the payload may go up to 4 GB.

 

8. IPv4 vs IPv6: Configuration

When you buy a new system then it is required to configure it. You will need to configure the system so that it can communicate with the other system which is the main function of IP addresses. So, you will need to configure the IPv4 addresses and also assign the routes.

 

On the other hand, the configuration is optional in IPv6. As the interfaces of IPv6 are self-configurable using IPv6 stateless auto configuration. But if you don’t want to auto-configure your system then you can also configure it manually so that the system could communicate with the other computers whether local or remote depending on the type of the network.

9. IPv4 vs IPv6: Quality Of Service (QOS)

The quality of service of IPv6 is better than that of the IPv6. There are many similarities between the QOS of these two protocols but the main difference lies in the header context and due to this, there is a difference between the packet processing during the transmission. The header context of IPv4 which is 8-bit DS is used to categorize the packet also, the service which is associated with it.

 

 

The header of IPv6 is 20-bit DS which offers quicker processing of the packets. All the packets originating from the same source and terminating to a particular destination are identified and handled by the router allowed by the header of IPv6. The delivery of packet becomes faster and more efficient as the flow of packet processing is recognized by the combination of packet value of flow label and packet source. And this eventually improves the Quality of Service of IPv6. IPv6 provides flexible options, extensions, and easier administration.

10. IPv4 vs IPv6: Mobility

IPv4 used triangular routing for transferring packets in mobiles. It was a problem for many communication networks. However, the mobile version of IPv6 does not use triangular routing and is more efficient.

 

IPv6 also allows entire subnets to move to a new router without renumbering.

These were the top 10 differences between IPv4 and IPv6. Hope you found the article helpful. Stay tuned for more interesting and informative content.

 

IPv6 is newer to the internet and more than 95% of the websites, users, and ISPs are still using the overloaded IPv4. Websites are making the transition to IPv6 but the internet service providers have to provide its users compatibility for both IPv4 and IPv6. Hope you found the article helpful. Stay tuned for more interesting and informative content.

 

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[Agent 86]

dont need IPv6. Been disabled for over 3 years now. Never a problem so far. One less thing to worry about!

 

[pc71520]

12 hours ago, 0bin said:

IPv6 is the future, but right now is...

problematic in quite a few cases.