In this case, you would not use the “::” symbol, and would instead just stick with the standard single colon divider between fields. So, if any of the eight fields in the address starts with a zero, or multiple zeroes, you can remove those zeroes without impacting the resulting address. In this rule, you are still getting rid of zeroes, but in this case, it’s the leading zeroes in each field that will be eliminated. The double-colon has removed the block of 12 zeroes in the middle of the address, and the compressed version is significantly smaller as a result. For example, consider the two versions of an IPv6 address below – Rather than the single colon that typically breaks up the eight fields of the address, this double colon is an indication that a segment of continuous zeroes has been removed. In the place of those zeroes, you simply use a double colon or “::” symbol. To start with, a run of continuous zeroes can be eliminated when compressing an IPv6 address.

Properly adhering to these three rules means the address you are left with will correspond properly to the full-length version that you started with. To properly compress an IPv6 address down into something more manageable and easier to use, there are three rules that you must follow. Let’s take a closer look at how the compression rules work below.įollowing the Three Rules of IPv6 Compression However, there are rules that must be followed to perform the compression correctly and still point to the correct address. To make this new protocol easier to use, it’s helpful to compress the address into something a little more manageable. In its natural state, an IPv6 address uses eight fields that are separated by colons, and within each of those eight fields is 16 bits.

Of course, it follows that IPv6 addresses will be much longer than their predecessors, due to all of those extra bits. This vast expansion in capacity is due to the use of 128-bit addresses in IPv6 as opposed to just 32-bit addresses in IPv4. As the world was quickly running out of IP address options due to the proliferation of digital devices, it became important to upgrade to IPv6 to open up trillions of more potential IP addresses.

For years, the internet and the devices that connect to it have steadily been working toward IPv6 from the previous version of the internet protocol, IPv4.

The two rules of ipv6 compression