Internet Protocol Version 6
IPv6 is designed to succeed Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) as the communication protocol for the Internet.
Networking - More Information
Web Connection
Sometimes we need to connect to a web server using its IP Address (e.g., when working on a private development network without DNS). Web browsers can recognize IPv4 addresses when they are entered using the dotted-decimal format and handle the request without trying to look up the host in DNS. To open a web connection to a web server specified by an IPv6 address instead of by its name, it is necessary to enclose the IPv6 address in brackets so that the web browser can recognize that the entry is an IPv6 address and not a host name that needs to be resolved in DNS.
For example
http://[2001:4860:0:2001::68]/
would open a web site on the server with IPv6 address:
2001:4860:0:2001::68
Host Auto-configuration
The IPv6 protocol includes methods for hosts to automatically discover their network environment and configure their IPv6 address. This discovery includes the ability to identify and joined IPv6 networks by communicating with routers to acquire their address configuration.
Neighbor Discovery
IPv6 includes a Neighbor Discovery protocol consisting of a series of messages to interact with neighboring nodes on the same link. This allows groups of computers to automatically communicate over IPv6.
Jumbogram
IPv4 limits packet size to 65535 (216 - 1) octets for their payload. IPv6 has optional support for packets over this limit, referred to as jumbograms, which can be as large as 4294967295 (232 - 1) octets. The use of jumbograms may be useful for transferring very large files over links capable of these high message transfer rates.
