Talk:IPv6/Archives/2005

ARP

Wise to have someone second this before changing it, but in the table in the top right which lists protocols, ARP is given in the Network Layer. This is incorrect - ARP does not use IP datagrams, it uses Ethernet frames, and is part of the Data Link Layer. Toby Douglass 16:33, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Better to discuss this at Template talk:IPstack. I've copied your comment there. -- JTN 19:43, 2005 May 26 (UTC)

Header Image

Hi, I don't like the IPv6 Header image. It is diffucult to see the relative sizes of each section as they are not to scale. Could it be replaced with something like this?

  IPv6 Header, 40 bytes
   0                   1                   2                   3
   0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
  |IP Ver | Traffic Class |              Flow Label               |
  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
  |         Payload Length        |  Next Header  |  Hop Limit    |
  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
  |                                                               |
  |                             Source                            |
  |                             Address                           |
  |                                                               |
  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
  |                                                               |
  |                           Destination                         |
  |                             Address                           |
  |                                                               |
  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

I would be happy to make this image. The only issue I have with the ASCII-art version above is that the numeric ruler would probably be more useful with octal or hexadecimal cycles. Octal would match the sizes of the segments, so I'd prefer that. The only advantage that I see for decimal is that it makes it easier to see exactly which bit a segment starts on; this seems less important (thinking from the perspective of someone coding a parser) than the sizes. HorsePunchKid 07:14, 2005 May 27 (UTC)

I went ahead and made an image[1]. I welcome any constructive criticism. If anyone is interested, I can supply the source document in SVG format. HorsePunchKid 03:56, 2005 May 28 (UTC)

NAT vs. IPv6

I think this affirmation should be removed from the article: the NAT is a dirty hack on top of the IP protocol, to bypass the problem, and is somewhat a violation of the principles of the IP protocol, as the NATed host can reach the outside world but can't be reached. There are a number of applications that can't be used behind NAT (e.g. FTP or IRC, but these ones are well-known for a quite long time, and widely spread, so most of NAT systems are tweaked to correct this problem).

The wording has since been changed. // Pathoschild 14:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

IPv4 address space

Since this article mentions IPv4 address space, perhaps it needs to be mentioned how many can actually be used for normal public internet addressing. I believe this is around 3.5 billion or something? No need to go into the details, direct to the Ipv4 article but I think this should be mentioned

About 'Confusing' notice

For example, 243f:6a88:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7344. If a 16-bit group is 0000, it may be omitted, and if more than two consecutive colons result from this omission, they may be reduced to two colons, as long as there is only one group of more than two consecutive colons. Thus 0588:2353::1428:57ab is the same as 0588:2353:0000:0000:0000:0000:1428:57ab, but 3906::25de::cade is invalid. If the address is an IPv4 address in disguise, the last 32 bits may be written in decimal; thus ::ffff:192.168.89.9 is the same as ::ffff:c0a8:5909

is confusing.....

For example, 243f:6a88:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7344.

One or more consecutive group of '0000' (16-bit group) may be reduced to two colons. Thus 0588:2353:0000:0000:0000:0000:1428:57ab becomes 0588:2353::1428:57ab. However, reduction can only occur once; hence 3906::25de::cade is invalid. If the address is an IPv4 address in disguise, the last 32 bits may be written in decimal; thus ::ffff:192.168.89.9 is the same as ::ffff:c0a8:5909.

Interestingly, if 0000 in was used to denote IPv4 mapping then we could express it as ::c0a8:5909 or even ::192.168.89.9 in IPv6 format. Ah well, may be the hardware is easier to implement using ffff in this fashion.

by George Dennie to the public domain.

I'm copyediting the article at the moment. What do you think of the new wording in that section? // Pathoschild 14:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

IPv4-mapped vs. IPv6-compatible

IPv4-mapped and IPv6-compatible addresses are different things. An explanation should be added, and also some text about why mapped addresses are a bad idea and are deprecated. -- Marcod'Itri

The article claims that IPv6-compatible addresses are deprecated, not IPv4-mapped. Is this an error? // Pathoschild 14:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

No, it is actually true. These are completely different, and only the IPv4-compatible ones are being deprecated at the moment. -- Rdenis 10:08, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

IPv6 patented by Microsoft

Apparently, there is stories around that M$ has a patent on IPv6. Such an information would appropriately sit well on "Major IPv6 announcements" section. I have however restrained myself from doing so. I am aware there are people who REALLY love patents and that might lead to a stupid edit war. Having it here may be good enough as it will remind us to add it in the front page once we get more information. I found this comment a bit interesting. [2] gathima 15:31, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The story was actually a complete bust as the patent referenced was for Microsoft's method of autogenerating IPs (v4) when no router was present. If it deserves mention here, it is only as a clarification. Good example of how slashdot is not necessarily the most trustworthy news source around. -- gxti 17:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Which is an www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3927.txt RFC3927 and no there is absolutely no trouble here as the IPv6 method of link-local's existed before Microsoft patented it.

A question for User:83.99.60.150

Can I ask why you reverted the edits I made last night? [3] My feeling is that the long list of links to the national forums goes against policy that Wikipedia is a not a respository of links, and so I removed those links. I also removed the {{TOCright}} because I find that, unless there is a good reason for having the table of contents on the right, it makes the TOC less useful. (For an example of where it is good, see List of volcanoes, where the TOC is so big it would disrupt the rest of the page if it were in the normal place.) -- AJR | Talk 19:10, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree about the table of contents; it should be on the left. I'm going to change it. There's really no reason for it to be on the right. --Snaxe920 17:17, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Data Oriented?

The article starts out, IPv6, or Internet Protocol version 6, is a data-oriented network layer standard .... What does data-oriented mean in this context? Was the intent to contrast it with flow-oriented? --RoySmith 18:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I think this was meant to point out that it's designed for transmission of artibrary data, rather than being just a signalling mechanism like ICMP is.

Crazy numeral naming

Is it necessary to use definitions of numbers that the average user won't understand? Let's quit the quintillion googleplex stuff and keep it to scientific notation when larger than 1 trillion or so.

• Fixed! --RoySmith 22:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)