What is the difference between IPv4 and IPv6?

[janakkapadia]

Does the latest networking hardware automatically accomodate IPv6 addresses?

[nkarthikeyan]

Hi Janak,

Yeah it can support automatically in lastest hardwares or some case we need to enable it. But that will give you the IPv4 equivalent IP address in IPv6 format.

But if you want to use the IPv6 segment IP address on the devices. You have to configure it as per the IPv6 standard. So just the compatability between 2 version is enabled.

HTH

Regards

Karthik

[Joseph W. Doherty]

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Posting

Automatically?  Usually not, for networking devices.

Usually, network devices need to be configured to support IPv6 just like they need to be configured to support IPv4.

[steluck]

Hi Janak,

Devices within the past several years are IPv6 capable, meaning they carry support for IPv6 addressing. Since we are still in a stage of transitioning between IPv4 and IPv6, IPv6 must be enabled on most interfaces (through the command ipv6 enable). IPv6 link-local addresses can be automatically configured by way of the router's IPv6 address or manually configured.

Hope this helps!

[ttruong2]

In order for networking devices to route IPv6 addresses, you must enable ipv6 routing with "ipv6 unicast routing" on your device.  Conversely, the device doesn't need any intervention to receive ipv6 addresses. 

[jmiddend]

Hi janakkapadia -

If you are considering purchasing new networking hardware I would strongly suggest that you check the specifications of whatever products you're interested in to make sure it does support IPv6. However, as "steluk" mentioned earlier most devices today do support the feature albeit needing to be turned on.

Justin