Chapter- XXXI

IP ADDRESSING - IPV4/ IPV6

31.0 An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is essential to each device

connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for
communication. It serves both network interface identification and location
addressing.

31.1 The IP address space is managed globally by the Internet Assigned

Numbers Authority (IANA), and by five regional Internet registries (RIRs)
responsible in their designated territories for assignment to local Internet
registries, such as Internet service providers, and other end users.

31.2 Two versions of IP addressing are in common use in the Internet today.
The original version of the Internet Protocol is Internet Protocol version 4
(IPv4) which majority of users are familiar with. The next version of IP
addresses is called IPv6.

31.3 IPv4 addressing Scheme

31.3.1 An IPv4 address has a size of 32 bits, which limits the address space to
around 4.29 billion (232) addresses. Of this number, some addresses are
reserved for special purposes such as private networks (~18 million
addresses) and multicast addressing (~270 million addresses).

31.3.2 IPv4 addresses are represented in dot-decimal notation, consisting of four

decimal numbers, each ranging from 0 to 255, separated by dots, e.g.,
172.16.254.1
31.4 Sub-networks

31.4.1 IP networks may be divided into sub-networks. For this purpose, an IP

address consists of two parts: the network prefix in the high-order bits and
the remaining bits called the rest field or host identifier used for host
numbering within a network. The subnet mask notation determines how
the IP address is divided into network and host parts.

31.4.2 Subnet mask is a number that identifies the number of bits used for the
network part of the IP address. Subnet mask is also represented as a 32
bit number. If n number of bits represent the network part of the address,
its 32 bit representation is n one’s followed by (32 - n) zeroes. This may
then be represented in dotted decimal notation.

31.5 Private addresses

31.5.1 Computers not connected to the Internet that communicate only with each
other via TCP/IP, need not have globally unique IP addresses. Such
private networks are widely used and typically connect to the Internet with
network address translation (NAT), when needed.

31.5.1.1 Special IP address ranges that are used for special purposes are:

0.0.0.0/8 – addresses used to communicate with the local network

127.0.0.0/8 – loopback addresses
169.254.0.0/16 – link-local addresses (APIPA)
The special purpose IP addresses cannot be used for networking.

31.5.1.2 Private/ Public IP addresses

The IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) reserves the following IP

address blocks for use as private IP addresses:
10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255
The above ranges of the IP addresses can be used by anyone for an
Intranet network.
Except private & special purpose IP addresses all IP addresses of class A,
B & C are public or global IP addresses.

31.5.2 Private addressing scheme of Indian Railways

31.5.2.1 IPv4 Private addresses allotted by the Railway Board are being used in
the Data networks of IR. The private address space chosen for these
networks are 10.0.0.0/8. The IP addresses are then further divided as per
 allotment among various zones and divisions for each of the individual
data networks.

31.5.2.2 The 10.0.0.0/8 network address has been further subnetted to 10.X.0.0/16
network by Railway board and allocated to Zonal Railways, divisions ,
RDSO,PSUs and Training Institutes.

31.5.3 Public IP address is required for giving access of any intranet

service to the Public through internet

31.5.4 Private IPs are free and need not require any permission for using these
IP addresses.

31.5.5 Private IP addresses within the same local network must be unique and
cannot be repeated.

31.5.6 Private IP addresses cannot communicate in the public domain and are
not able to use Internet services. In this case, the connection to the
Internet is possible via NAT (network address translation) features of
networking which logically replaces the private IP address with a public
one.

31.5.7 For availability of Internet facility minimum one public IP address is must
for any Intranet network. Through NAT at Intranet gateway level private IP
addresses are logically hidden and public IP addresses represent the
Intranet traffic like a mediator in public domain.

31.5.8 An Internet Service Provider(ISP) is a company that provides Internet

access to organizations and home users.

31.5.9 ISPs are responsible for making sure you can access the Internet, routing
Internet traffic, resolving domain names, and maintaining the network
infrastructure that makes Internet access possible.

31.5.10 At Present RCIL is the ISP for Indian Railways.

31.5.11 All Railnet users are able to access internet service through public IP used
at Gateway level of RCIL through NATing.

31.6 IPv6 addressing Scheme

31.6.1 In IPv6, the address size was increased from 32 bits in IPv4 to 128 bits,
thus providing up to 2128 (approximately 3.403×1038) addresses. This
gives virtually unlimited unique addresses for future use.
31.7 Important features of IPV6

31.7.1 Sufficient address space for the near future.

31.7.2 Enhanced security: IPSec (Internet Protocol Security) is built into IPv6 as
part of the protocol. This means that two devices can dynamically create a
secure tunnel without user intervention

31.7.3 Header improvements: the packed header used in IPv6 is simpler than
the one used in IPv4. The IPv6 header is not protected by a checksum so
routers do not need to calculate a checksum for every packet making
transmission efficient.

31.7.4 No need for NAT: since every device has a globally unique IPv6 address,
there is no need for NAT.

31.7.5 Stateless address autoconfiguration: IPv6 hosts can automatically

configure themselves with an IPv6 address even without a DHCP server.

31.8 Addressing Scheme

31.8.1 The 128 bits of IPV6 is represented as 32 hexadecimal numbers arranged

in 8 quartets of 4 hexadecimal digit separated by a colon":"

31.8.1.1 Not case sensitive for A, B, C, D, E and F

31.8.1.2 Omission of ZEROS

31.8.1.3 Leading zero in any quartet can be omitted.

31.8.1.4 Four successive zeros in a Quartet can be substituted by one zero.

31.8.1.5 Replacing Successive Fields of Zeros with "::”

31.8.1.6 Multiple quartet with zero can be represented as :: but only once in a
address

Example: 2001:0DB8:AC10:FE01:0000:0000:0000:0000
31.9 IPv6 Migration

31.9.1 IPv6 and IPv4 are not compatible. Migration from IPv4 to IPv6 will be done in
near future. Until IPv6 completely supplants IPv4, which is not likely to happen
in the foreseeable future, a number of so-called transition/migration
mechanisms are needed so that both coexists and work together. Various
stakeholders will have to become thorough with the knowledge of IPV6 and the
migration strategies. These trained man- power will handhold railways to
migrate Railnet and other networks from IPv4 to IPv6 when the migration boom
occurs.

31.9.2 There are basically 3 methods for migrating from IPv4 to IPv6 that are
prevalent today.

31.9.2.1 Dual Stack Method

31.9.2.1.1 It allows IPv4 & IPv6 to coexist in the same device & network.

31.9.2.1.2 In the dual stack method all the devices like PCs, switches, routers, ADSL
modems etc. dual stacked i.e. these equipment will use both IPv4 drivers
as well as IPv6 drivers. This will allow both IPv4 and IPv6 to coexist and
gradual transition from IPv4 to IPv6 can happen. Here, the computer
decides whether to use IPv4 or IPv6 based on sets of rules. DNS servers
are also used to decide if IPv6 or IPv4 is used.
31.9.2.2 Tunneling

31.9.2.2.1 It allows IPv6 hosts to communicate over IPv4 infrastructure.Tunneling

encapsulates IPv6 traffic within IPv4 packets.Allows isolated IPv6 end
system and routers to communicate without the need to upgrade the IPv4
infrastructure that exists between them.

31.9.2.2.2 Following tunneling configurations exist:

• Router-to-Router
• Host-to-Router and Router-to-Host
• Host-to-Host

31.9.2.3 Translation [SIIT and NAT64] (Stateless IP/ICMP Translation)

31.9.2.3.1 In the SIIT and NAT64 method all the devices like PCs, switches, routers,
ADSL modems etc. are configured with IPv6 address only, the gateways
are configured with SIIT and NAT64 protocol and with DNS-64, the
gateways will connect external IPv4 as well as IPV6 network.
31.9.2.3.2 This allows communication between IPv4 only and IPv6 only end stations.
The job of the translator is to translate IPv6 packets into IPv4 packets by
doing address and port translation and vice versa.

31.9.2.3.3 This method seems to be the most preferred method to migrate IPv4 to
IPv6.

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