TCP/IP Tutorial and Technical Overview - IBM Redbooks

9.2.2 IPv6 addressing
Fragment header
The source node determines the maximum transmission unit or MTU for a path
before sending a packet. If the packet to be sent is larger than the MTU, the
packet is divided into pieces, each of which is a multiple of 8 bytes and carries a
fragment header. We provide details about the fragmentation header in “IPv6
packet fragmentation” on page 351.
Authentication header
The authentication header is used to ensure that a received packet has not been
altered in transit and that it really came from the claimed sender. The
authentication header is identified by the value 51 in the preceding Next Header
field. For the format of the authentication header and further details about
authentication, refer to 9.2.5, “IPv6 security” on page 347.
Encapsulating Security Payload
The Encapsulated Security Payload (ESP) is a special extension header, in that
it can appear anywhere in a packet between the basic header and the upper
layer protocol. All data following the ESP header is encrypted. For further details,
see 9.2.5, “IPv6 security” on page 347.
Destination options header
This has the same format as the hop-by-hop header, but it is only examined by
the destination node or nodes. Normally, the destination options are only
intended for the final destination only and the destination options header will be
immediately before the upper-layer header. However, destination options can
also be intended for intermediate nodes, in which case, they must precede a
routing header. A single packet can, therefore, include two destination options
headers. Currently, only the Pad1 and PadN types of options are specified for
this header (see “Hop-by-hop header” on page 335). The value for the preceding
Next Header field is 60.
The IPv6 address model is specified in RFC 4291 – IP Version 6 Addressing
Architecture. IPv6 uses a 128-bit address instead of the 32-bit address of IPv4.
That theoretically allows for as many as
340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses. Even when
used with the same efficiency as today's IPv4 address space, that still allows for
50,000 addresses per square meter of land on Earth.
The IPv6 address provides flexibility and scalability:
► It allows multilevel subnetting and allocation from a global backbone to an
individual subnet within an organization.
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