An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label such as 192.0.2.1 that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface identification, and location addressing.
Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the first version of the Internet Protocol (IP) as a standalone specification. It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version deployed for production on SATNET in 1982 and on the ARPANET in January 1983. It is still used to route most Internet traffic today, even with the ongoing deployment of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), its successor.
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to deal with the long-anticipated problem of IPv4 address exhaustion, and was intended to replace IPv4. In December 1998, IPv6 became a Draft Standard for the IETF, which subsequently ratified it as an Internet Standard on 14 July 2017.
Classless Inter-Domain Routing is a method for allocating IP addresses for IP routing. The Internet Engineering Task Force introduced CIDR in 1993 to replace the previous classful network addressing architecture on the Internet. Its goal was to slow the growth of routing tables on routers across the Internet, and to help slow the rapid exhaustion of IPv4 addresses.
A subnetwork, or subnet, is a logical subdivision of an IP network. The practice of dividing a network into two or more networks is called subnetting.
A Martian packet is an IP packet seen on the public Internet that contains a source or destination address that is reserved for special use by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) as defined in RFC 1812, Appendix B Glossary. On the public Internet, such a packet either has a spoofed source address, and it cannot actually originate as claimed, or the packet cannot be delivered. The requirement to filter these packets is found in RFC 1812, Section 5.3.7.
In Internet networking, a private network is a computer network that uses a private address space of IP addresses. These addresses are commonly used for local area networks (LANs) in residential, office, and enterprise environments. Both the IPv4 and the IPv6 specifications define private IP address ranges.
6to4 is an Internet transition mechanism for migrating from Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) to version 6 (IPv6) and a system that allows IPv6 packets to be transmitted over an IPv4 network without the need to configure explicit tunnels. Special relay servers are also in place that allow 6to4 networks to communicate with native IPv6 networks.
In computer networking, Teredo is a transition technology that gives full IPv6 connectivity for IPv6-capable hosts that are on the IPv4 Internet but have no native connection to an IPv6 network. Unlike similar protocols such as 6to4, it can perform its function even from behind network address translation (NAT) devices such as home routers.
In the Internet addressing architecture, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) have reserved various Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for special purposes.
An IPv6 transition mechanism is a technology that facilitates the transitioning of the Internet from the Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) infrastructure in use since 1983 to the successor addressing and routing system of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6). As IPv4 and IPv6 networks are not directly interoperable, transition technologies are designed to permit hosts on either network type to communicate with any other host.
IP networks are divided logically into subnetworks. Computers in the same subnetwork have the same address prefix. For example, in a typical home network with legacy Internet Protocol version 4, the network prefix would be something like 192.168.1.0/24, as expressed in CIDR notation.
The deployment of IPv6, the latest version of the Internet Protocol (IP), has been in progress since the mid-2000s. IPv6 was designed as the successor protocol for IPv4 with an expanded addressing space. IPv4, which has been in use since 1982, is in the final stages of exhausting its unallocated address space, but still carries most Internet traffic.
An Internet Protocol version 6 address is a numeric label that is used to identify and locate a network interface of a computer or a network node participating in a computer network using IPv6. IP addresses are included in the packet header to indicate the source and the destination of each packet. The IP address of the destination is used to make decisions about routing IP packets to other networks.
Carrier-grade NAT, also known as large-scale NAT (LSN), is a type of network address translation (NAT) used by ISPs in IPv4 network design. With CGNAT, end sites, in particular residential networks, are configured with private network addresses that are translated to public IPv4 addresses by middlebox network address translator devices embedded in the network operator's network, permitting the sharing of small pools of public addresses among many end users. This essentially repeats the traditional customer-premise NAT function at the ISP level.
NAT64 is an IPv6 transition mechanism that facilitates communication between IPv6 and IPv4 hosts by using a form of network address translation (NAT). The NAT64 gateway is a translator between IPv4 and IPv6 protocols, for which function it needs at least one IPv4 address and an IPv6 network segment comprising a 32-bit address space. The "well-known prefix" reserved for this service is 64:ff9b::/96.
IPv4 Residual Deployment (4rd) is an IPv6 transition mechanism for Internet service providers for deployment of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), while maintaining IPv4 service to customers. The protocol and sample applications are specified in RFC 7600.
dIVI Translation refers to a dual stateless IPv4/IPv6 translation technique. dIVI is an extension of 1:1 stateless IPv4/IPv6 translation with features of IPv4 address sharing and dual translation. dIVI-PD is a further extension of dIVI to be well used in Wireline and Wireless (3G/4G) access environment, where the prefix delegation is preferred. dIVI-PD is now standardized as MAP-T in the IETF.
Rémi Després is a French engineer and entrepreneur known for his contributions on data networking.
In order to ensure proper working of carrier-grade NAT (CGN), and, by doing so, alleviating the demand for the last remaining IPv4 addresses, a /10 size IPv4 address block was assigned by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to be used as shared address space. This block of addresses is specifically meant to be used by Internet service providers that implement carrier-grade NAT, to connect their customer-premises equipment (CPE) to their core routers.
