M A G N U M 6 K S W I T C H E S , M N S - 6 K U S E R G U I D E74used as an identifier for the node. A single interface may be assigned multiple IPv6addresses of any type.There are three types of IPv6 addresses. These are unicast, anycast, and multicast. Unicastaddresses identify a single interface. Anycast addresses identify a set of interfaces such thata packet sent to an anycast address will be delivered to one member of the set. Multicastaddresses identify a group of interfaces, such that a packet sent to a multicast address isdelivered to all of the interfaces in the group. There are no broadcast addresses in IPv6,their function being superseded by multicast addresses.IPv6 supports addresses which are four times the number of bits as IPv4 addresses (128vs. 32). This is 4 Billion times 4 Billion times 4 Billion (296 ) times the size of the IPv4address space (2 32 ). This works out to be:340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456This is an extremely large address space. In a theoretical sense this is approximately665,570,793,348,866,943,898,599 addresses per square meter of the surface of the planetEarth (assuming the earth surface is 511,263,971,197,990 square meters). In the mostpessimistic estimate this would provide 1,564 addresses for each square meter of thesurface of the planet Earth. The optimistic estimate would allow for3,911,873,538,269,506,102 addresses for each square meter of the surface of the planetEarth. Approximately fifteen percent of the address space is initially allocated. Theremaining 85% is reserved for future use.The details on the addressing are covered by numerous articles on the WWW as well asother literature and are not covered here.Configuring IPv6The commands used for IPv6 are the same as those used for IPv4. Some of thecommands will be discussed in more details later. The only exception is the ‘ping’command where there is a special command for IPv6. That commands is ‘ping6’ and thesyntax is asSyntax ping6 - pings an IPv6 stationThere is also a special command to ping the status of IPv6. That command isSyntax show ipv6 - displays the IPv6 informationTo configure IPv6, the following sequence of commands can be used.Magnum6K25# ipconfig ?ipconfig : Configures the system IP address, subnet mask and gatewayUsageipconfig [ip=] [mask=] [dgw=]
