ZyXEL Communications EMG5324-D10A User Manual

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 Chapter 5 Broadband
EMG5324-D10A User’s Guide
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IPv6 Introduction
IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6), is designed to enhance IP address size and features. The 
increase in IPv6 address size to 128 bits (from the 32-bit IPv4 address) allows up to 3.4 x 10
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 IP 
addresses. The Device can use IPv4/IPv6 dual stack to connect to IPv4 and IPv6 networks, and 
supports IPv6 rapid deployment (6RD). 
IPv6 Addressing
The 128-bit IPv6 address is written as eight 16-bit hexadecimal blocks separated by colons (:). This 
is an example IPv6 address 2001:0db8:1a2b:0015:0000:0000:1a2f:0000.
IPv6 addresses can be abbreviated in two ways:
• Leading zeros in a block can be omitted. So 
2001:0db8:1a2b:0015:0000:0000:1a2f:0000
 can be written as 
2001:db8:1a2b:15:0:0:1a2f:0
• Any number of consecutive blocks of zeros can be replaced by a double colon. A double 
colon can only appear once in an IPv6 address. So 
2001:0db8:0000:0000:1a2f:0000:0000:0015
 can be written as 
2001:0db8::1a2f:0000:0000:0015
, 2001:0db8:0000:0000:1a2f::0015, 
2001:db8::1a2f:0:0:15
 or 2001:db8:0:0:1a2f::15.
IPv6 Prefix and Prefix Length
Similar to an IPv4 subnet mask, IPv6 uses an address prefix to represent the network address. An 
IPv6 prefix length specifies how many most significant bits (start from the left) in the address 
compose the network address. The prefix length is written as “/x” where x is a number. For 
example, 
2001:db8:1a2b:15::1a2f:0/32
means that the first 32 bits (2001:db8) is the subnet prefix. 
IPv6 Subnet Masking
Both an IPv6 address and IPv6 subnet mask compose of 128-bit binary digits, which are divided 
into eight 16-bit blocks and written in hexadecimal notation. Hexadecimal uses four bits for each 
character (1 ~ 10, A ~ F). Each block’s 16 bits are then represented by four hexadecimal 
characters. For example, FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FC00:0000:0000:0000.
DHCPv6
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6, RFC 3315) is a server-client protocol 
that allows a DHCP server to assign and pass IPv6 network addresses, prefixes and other 
configuration information to DHCP clients. DHCPv6 servers and clients exchange DHCP messages 
using UDP.
Each DHCP client and server has a unique DHCP Unique IDentifier (DUID), which is used for 
identification when they are exchanging DHCPv6 messages. The DUID is generated from the MAC 
address, time, vendor assigned ID and/or the vendor's private enterprise number registered with 
the IANA. It should not change over time even after you reboot the device.