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IPv6 Address Assignment
Example
Lesson Contents
1. IPv6 Global Unicast Prefix Assignments
2. IPv6 Global Unicast Subnet Assignments
3. Conclusion
In this lesson we’ll take a look how you can create IPv6 prefixes and
subnets so that you can configure your entire network with IPv6. We’ll
start at the top where IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) is
responsible for the global coordination of the IPv4 and IPv6 address
space and move our way all the way to the bottom where we assign
subnets and IPv6 addresses to our routers, switches and VLANs.
1. IPv6 Global Unicast Prefix
Assignments
IANA “owns” the entire IPv6 address space and they assign certain
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prefixes to the RIRs (Regional Internet Registry). There are 5 RIRs at the
moment:
AFRINIC: Africa
APNIC: Asia/Pacific
ARIN: North America
LACNIC: Latin America and some Caribbean Islands
RIPE NCC: Europe, Middle east and Central Asia
If you are interested, click here for an overview of all IPv6 prefix
assignments by IANA.
When a large ISP (or large company) in North America wants IPv6
addresses then they will contact ARIN who will assign them an IPv6
prefix if they meet all requirements. The ISP can then assign prefixes to
their customers.
Let’s take a look at some actual prefixes:
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IANA is using the 2000::/3 prefix for global unicast address space.
According to this list, RIPE NCC received prefix 2001:4000::/23
from IANA.
A large ISP called Ziggo in The Netherlands receives prefix
2001:41f0::/32 from RIPE NCC.
The ISP assigns prefix 2001:41f0:4060::/48 to one of their
customers.
Now it’s up to the customer what they want to do with their IPv6
prefix…
2. IPv6 Global Unicast Subnet
Assignments
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Our customer received prefix 2001:41f0:4060::/48 and they want to use
it to configure IPv6 on their entire network. Where do we start? Take a
look at the image below:
The 48-bit prefix that we received is typically called the global routing
prefix or site prefix. The interface ID is normally 64 bit which means
we have 16 bits left to create subnets.
If I want I can steal some more bits from the Interface ID to create even
more subnets but there’s no need for this. Using 16 bits we can create
65.536 subnets …more than enough for most of us. Let’s see what we
can do for our customer:
16 bits gives us 4 hexadecimal characters. All possible combinations
that we can create with those 4 hexadecimal characters are our
possible subnets. Everything from 0000 to FFFF are valid subnets:
2001:41f0:4060:0000::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0001::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0002::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0003::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0004::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0005::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0006::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0007::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0008::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0009::/64
2001:41f0:4060:000A::/64
2001:41f0:4060:000B::/64
2001:41f0:4060:000C::/64
2001:41f0:4060:000D::/64
2001:41f0:4060:000E::/64
2001:41f0:4060:000F::/64
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2001:41f0:4060:0010::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0011::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0012::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0013::/64
2001:41f0:4060:0014::/64
And so on…
Now you know what subnets you can use, here’s an example of a small
network where we use some of these subnets:
In the example above I used some numbers some make sense, for
example on VLAN 10 we use 2001:41f0:4060:10::/64, another good
option would be 2001:41f0:4060:A::/64 since the A in hexadecimal
equals 10 in decimal. For the VLANs it’s best to use a /64 so that you
can use autoconfiguration for hosts.
On the link between R1 and R2 I used a /64 but according to
RFC 6164 you should use a /127 on point-to-point links.
Each subnet will require an IPv6 address on the router that will be used
as the default gateway. The most simple solution is probably to use the
first IPv6 address in the subnet. For example for VLAN 20 you could use
2001:41f0:4060:20::1/64 or for VLAN 2 you could use
2001:41f0:4060:2::1/64.
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3. Conclusion
I hope this lesson has helped to understand where IPv6 prefixes come
from and how you can create your own subnets for your network.
There’s one more overview I want to share with you that has some of
the terminology:
Name Assignment Example
Registry prefix IANA to RIR 2001:4000::/23
ISP prefix RIR to ISP 2001:41f0::/32
Global routing
ISP to
prefix or site 2001:41f0:4060::/48
customer
prefix
Network
Subnet prefix 2001:41f0:4060:1234::/64
engineer
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!
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Forum Replies
johnfrades
Rene, just to be clear, they aren’t the same right?
2001:41f0:4060:10::/64 and 2001:41f0:4060:A::/64 ?
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ReneMolenaar
Hi John,
That’s right.
Rene
aujla3
Subnet prefix Network engineer 2001:41f0:4060:1234::/48
shouldn’t this be /64 ?
ReneMolenaar
Yes that’s right, just fixed it. Thanks!
ibmufa
Why are these not the same
2001:41f0:4060:10::/64 and 2001:41f0:4060:A::/64 ?
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