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Hello all,

i am little bit confusing about IPv4 and IPv6. Any one have clear knowledge about IP versions.
please post it asap.i am searching in internet but not cleared about this.

Thanks

The IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) is a protocol for use on packet-switched Link Layer networks (e.g. Ethernet). IPv4 offers an addressing capacity of approximately 4.3 billion addresses.

The IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) is additional featured and has more advanced compared to IPv4. It has the capability to offer an infinite number of addresses. It is replacing IPv4 to accommodate the increasing number of networks worldwide and help resolve the IP address collapse problem.

Differences

1. One of the differences between IPv4 and IPv6 is the appearance of the IP addresses. IPv4 uses four 1 byte decimal numbers, separated by a dot (i.e. 191.163.1.1), while IPv6 uses hexadecimal numbers that are separated by colons (i.e. fe86::l4a8:6315:g2d4:d9k3b70).

2. IPv4 addresses are 32 bit length, while IPv6 addresses are 128 bit length.

3. IPv4 IPSec support is only optional, but IPv6 have Inbuilt IPSec support.

4. In IPv4 fragmentation is done by sender and forwarding routers, while fragmentation is done only by sender in IPv6.

5. No packet flow identification in IPv4 but Packet flow identification is available within theIPv6 header using the Flow Label field.

6. Checksum field is available in IPv4 header while No checksum field in IPv6 header.

7. In IPv4 header options fields are available, while No option fields in IPv6, but IPv6 Extension headers are available.

8. ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) is available to map IPv4 addresses to MAC addresses but ARP is replaced with a function of NDP (Neighbor Discovery Protocol) to map IPv6 addresses.

9. IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) is used to manage multicast group membership in IPv4 but MLD (Multicast Listener Discovery) replaced IGMP messages in IPv6.

10. Broadcast messages are available in IPv4 but Broadcast messages are not available in IPv6. As an alternative a link-local scope "All nodes" multicast IPv6 address (FF02::1) is used for broadcast like functionality.

Advantages of IPv6:

• IPv6 is friendlier to mobile networks than IPv4.
• IPv6 more easily the router’s task compared to IPv4.
• IPv6 allows for larger payloads than what is allowed in IPv4.
• IPv6 is utilized by less than 1% of the networks, while IPv4 is still in use by the remaining 99%.

IPv4 is the 4th version to the Internet Protocol. It uses 32-bit numeric address. Each three-digit section can include a number from 0 to 255.

IPv6 is the sixth revision to the Internet Protocol and the successor to IPv4. It functions similarly to IPv4 in that it provides the unique; it uses 128-bit addresses.