The TCP/IP philosophy


IP Next Generation


InterNet Protocol (IP)

InterNet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)

Transport Control Protocol (TCP)

User Datagram Protocol (UDP)


IP Next Generation



The current version of the IP protocol has a number of shortcomings, most seriously probably the problem of the limited address space of only 4 billion IP addresses. This seems to be enough, but the net has grown rapidly in recent years, and by December 1994 it comprised over 32000 networks connecting over 3.8 million hosts in more than 90 countries. Still this number seems to be small compared to the 4 billion mentioned above, but the current concept of dividing the address space into class A, B and C networks of different, but fixed size wastes an awful lot of numbers.

At the time of September 1981, when the most recent specification of IPv4 originated, it was unthinkable that once there will be such a vast number of machines needing an IP address. With Bill Gates ideas of coffee machines running Windows and being hooked up to the net this number will explode once again. While it is fun to think about where you could plug a computer mouse into a coffee machine, some serious computer scientists have come up with some decent specifications on how IPng (IP Next Generation), or IPv6, should look like. However, up to now there is virtually no host running IPv6. As soon as there is any significant number, STinG will be adapted to fully explore the additional features of IPv6.

If anyone is interested in IPv6, some proposed details are summed up in RFC #1550. This document can be fetched via the following URL :

ftp.internic.net/rfc/rfc1550.txt



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