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The next generation of Internet connectivity
IPv6 and Linux
IPv6 is the next generation of Internet Protocol (IP) that will replace IPv4. IP takes care of the basics of getting information from point A to point B on the Internet; it handles the addressing of packets and not much more. If you want integrity, if you want data delivered in the right order, and if you want only one copy of the data to be processed, you'll need a higher layer protocol such as TCP. But, you generally don't get those things unless the packets know where to go. IPv6 is very similar to IPv4 except for the parts that are completely different (e.g., link local and broadcast addresses, auto-discovery, auto-configuration, self-forming networks, IPSec, etc.).
Why You Care about IPv6
IPv4 has been in use since 1981 and is beginning to show its age, especially in one critical area: address space. In theory, IPv4 has about 4.3 billion usable addresses; however, in practice many cannot be used (i.e., all of 127.* is reserved for your local link, 10.* is reserved for internal networks, and 224.* and up are reserved for multicast, so that's half a billion addresses you can't really use).
IPv6 addresses this issue with a rather simple and effective solution: It uses a 128-bit address, which makes for a ridiculously large address space, although back when IPv4 was created, I'm sure they thought the same thing (see the "IPv6 Logging" box).
IPv6 Logging
For any logging of network addresses, you need to support 128 bits of information rather than 32 bits. Additionally, database field sizes need to be enlarged, and software needs to be updated to parse both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses. The good news is that the addresses are easy to tell apart: One has full colons, and the other doesn't. You should also note that attackers will be able to rotate IP addresses
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