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6bone Trials One of the important proving grounds of IPv6 is the 6bone, a testbed network spanning North America, Europe, and Japan, which began operating in 1996. The 6bone is a virtual network built on top of portions of todays IPv4-based Internet, designed specifically to route IPv6 packets. The goal of this collaborative trial is to test IPv6 implementations and to define early policies and procedures that will be necessary to support IPv6 in the future. In addition, it will demonstrate IPv6s new capabilities and will provide a basis for user confidence in the new protocol. For most users, the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 will occur when the version of their hosts operating system software is updated; in some cases, it means running dual-stacked systems with both versions of IP. For larger user networks, it may make sense to follow the model of the larger global Internet--in particular, to predesign the IPv6 network topology and addressing scheme, to build a testbed IPv6 network with routers and a DNS, and then slowly to migrate applications, users, and subnetworks to the new backbone. The lessons learned from the 6bone activity are useful for individual networks as well as for the Internet backbone. SUMMARY The transition to IPv6 has already started, even though most Internet and TCP/IP users have not yet seen new software on their local systems or on local networks. Before IPv6 can be widely deployed, the network infrastructure must be upgraded to employ software that accommodates the new protocol. In addition, the new address format must be accommodated by every TCP/IP protocol that uses addresses. The domain name system (DNS), for example, has defined an AAAA resource record for IPv6 128-bit addresses (IPv4s 32-bit addresses use an A record) and the IP6.INT address domain (IPv4 uses the ARPA address domain). Other protocols that must be modified for IPv6 include dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP), the address resolution protocol (ARP) family, and IP routing protocols such as the routing information protocol (RIP), open shortest path first (OSPF) protocol, and the border gateway protocol (BGP). Only after the routers and the backbones are upgraded will hosts start to transition to the new protocol and applications be modified to take advantage of IPv6s capabilities. Appendix: The IPv6 Specifications IPV6 CORE DESCRIPTION IPv6 is specified in a number of RFCs. The core description of IPv6 and related protocols can be found in:
Other related RFCs include:
RFCs may be obtained over the Internet via anonymous FTP from ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc. For additional sites and mechanisms to obtain RFCs, send E-mail to rfc-info@isi.edu and put help: ways_to_get_rfcs in the message body.
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