Internet Protocol Version 4 and It Next Generation IP - Report Example

?Contents Introduction 2 2 Why IPv6 ? 3 3 Technical Evaluation 4 4 Business Issues 9 5 Current Deployment Status of IPv6 10 6 Future of IPv6 14 7 Conclusion 15 8 Work Cited 17 Name of the Author Name of the Professor Course 29 October 2010 1 Introduction The Internet Protocol Version 4 was constructed to interconnect educational institutes and government offices in the United States. For this reason, it was designed in a simplest and lightest form. However, after global adoption of IP version 4 throughout the world, it motivated researchers to review and redesign it. IP version 6 is a new or updated version of the previous version i.e. IP version 4. The protocol operates the network layer that is a third layer of the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model. Likewise, network layer incorporates addressing information and control information that enables data packets to be routed within the computer network ("Internet Protocol Version 6." 255-255). Moreover, IP version 6 is also considered or called as the next generation IP, as specified by the IEFT: RFC 2460 ("Internet Protocol Version 6." 255-255). However, the primary reason for upgrading the IP version 4 to IP version 6 is address space limitations. Moreover, other issues such as performance, security and auto configuration are considered secondary (Loshin 305). Likewise, address space limitations are linked with the IP address space crisis that is debatable since a very long time and it is considered as the primary motivational factor for the new version (Loshin 305). There were no doubts for the design, as it was remarkably well designed, however, the design was created twenty years back and needs a review. Moreover, an increasing number of network threats are also addressed in IP version 6 and have more features as compare to IP version 4. Furthermore, in large and complex computer network environments, automated IP configuration reduces administration and configuration. IP version 6 addresses this issue by providing auto configurations of IP addresses. There are numerous research studies that have been carried out for IP version 6. They will be discussed in detail in the body of the report. Figure 1 source: (Che, Lewis 2010) 2 Why IPv6 ? The need for more and more addresses arise because an estimate through the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) reveals that about 85 percent of the IPv4 addresses are currently in use. The European Commission (EC) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) before 2008 states that there is a need to migrate towards IPv6 urgently as they say “In the short-term, businesses and public authorities might be tempted to try to squeeze their needs into the strait jacket of the old system, but this would mean Europe is badly placed to take advantage of the latest Internet technology, and could face a crisis when the old system runs out of addresses. If Europeans are to use the latest Internet devices such as smart RFID tags in shops, factories, and airports, intelligent heating and lighting systems that save energy, and in-car networks and navigation systems, then we already face a thousand-fold increase in demand for IP addresses.” (Courtney 52-54). The same statement also includes that by 2010 every public and industry authorities must migrate towards IPV6. 3 Technical Evaluation 3.1 Technical Specifications of IPv6 The IPv6 is made up of numerous bits of network addresses. The number of bits varies from 32 bits to 128 bits or 3.4 x 1038 nodes that are addressable. They offer exceptional IP addresses that are different for every single network device on the globe. The packet related to the IPv6 consists of two major parts i.e. THE HEADER is the top most part and the primary 40 octets of the packet consist of 320 bits. Furthermore, the packet contains (Courtney 52-54): 1. Version The version of this IP is 6 (4-bit IP version) 2. Traffic class-packet priority (8-bits) The value of the priority is sub classified into several ranges. The traffic is delineated as the base that provides the blockage control of traffic as well as, the non-blockage control of traffic. 3. Flow labels It is the excellent QC management service that provides 20 bits. Initially it is used for providing the immediate application service although, it is at present not in use. 4. Payload length The length of the payload in bytes is measured as 16 bits. 5. Next header The summarized protocol is specified via next header. The values are well-matched with the values that are provided by IPv4 protocol field (8 bits). 6. Hop limit The hop limit refers to the substitution of the IPv4 (8 bits) time to live (TTL). The TTL helps in the limitation of the number of transmissions for packet data in computer network technology such as packet data. 7. Source and destination address possess 128 bits each. THE PAYLOAD of IPv6 in the normal mode or with a ‘jumbo payload’ possesses the size of 64 Kibibyte KiB (kilo binary byte). The disintegrated regarding the sending host in IPV6 is solved by the never fragmented a packet via routers and path maximum transmission unit i.e. PMTU is anticipated by the customers. However, the Next Header field is reinstated by the protocol field of the IPv4. This typically reveals the transported protocol that is used via packet payload. Recently, the Next Header field identifies several options that offer an additional header. This additional header provides the payload's protocol and also follows the header related to the IPv6. (Courtney 52-54) The inclusion of the optional or the added header is analogous to the handing of the authentication heading (AH) and encapsulating security payload (ESP) in IPSec (internet protocol security- a suite of protocols for securing internet protocol (IP) communications by authenticating and encrypting each IP packet of a data stream) mutually for IPv6 and IPv4. 3.2 Technical Support for Applications The eight steps that support the application, compatible with IPv6 are illustrated below (LIMONCELLI 44-48)("Successful Strategies for IPv6 Rollouts. Really. - ACM Queue "): 1. In order to test the efficiency and to observe the standards, a lab that is filled with a number of present devices must be set up. 2. Now the tools must be checked thoroughly by the technical workforce team and promotes them to use IPv6 such as, in the tunneled access at home. 3. The knowledge and trainings must be provided to the technical workforce resulting in understanding and accepting the application easily. 4. To determine the IPv6 addresses there is a need to upgrade the DNS services. As, a result the latest protocols related to the networks are handled professionally prior to be widely used. 5. The IPv6 connections must be facilitated all over the network while considering not crashing the existing IPv4 servers, users and other business related consumers. 6. The internal servers must be upgraded in order support the protocols and they can be used in testing the internal applications with the help of internal clients. 7. The DNS records help to organize the internal IPv6 thus, allowing its users to connect via IPv6 services. In order to make sure, the constant uses of IPv4 dual-stack support is implemented. 8 Now if the connections regarding the network and system are well established and supported, migration towards the IPv6 can be done successfully. 3.3 Technical Comparison IPv4 & IPv6 In IPv4, it is mandatory to set Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) redirect messages for filtration on the rest of the Internet, as cyber threats initiated by cyber criminals may attempt to make confusion in hosts by transmitting false redirection messages (Beijnum 266). However, in IPv6, this issue can create a more serious impact, as the functionality of ICMP is empowered with more functions, (Beijnum 266) as the writers in 1996 associated with RFC 1970 along with the replacement of RFC 2461 in 1998 initiated an efficient way of denying ICMP version 6 messages that are broadcaster by the remote attacks such as botnets and all other types associated with ICMP version 6 that are associated with a single subnet along with the configured hop limit of 255 on the initiating computer. Likewise, this configuration allows the recipient to analyze whether the data packets are meant for the computer residing on the same subnet or by a remote system. Likewise, if there is a possibility of sender and receiver residing on a same subnet, data packets will not be navigated any routes and consequently the hop limit on the recipient’s computer will be 255. Moreover, an intelligent hacker can customize and modify a data packet’s parameter, as the primary objective is to penetrate in the computer network, however, the hacker may not be able to set the hop limit to 255 of destination computers. Likewise, if the hackers initiate a data packet with a hop limit of 255, the computer at the recipient’s end will identify a lower value due to router’s involvement that may have reduced the hop limit (Beijnum 266). Furthermore, if the initial hop limit is less than 255, this will also not help and the increase in hop limit value will not be possible, as 255 is the highest hop limit possible that is applicable on an 8 bit octet (Beijnum 266). 3.4 IPv6 and IPv4 Security Challenge Analysis  In the year 2005, IPv6 was mandated by the federal government of the U.S and it was operational by June 2008 (Ard 44-48). However, almost all the tools associated with IPv 6 are compatible with IPv4 as well. Likewise, there is a buzz in the industry that IPv6 enabled security is the primary option and not the precise IPv6 security. Federal or government networks are dependent on the industry for the provision of security tools, as the government is directly involved in the IP transition from version 4 to version 6 (Ard 44-48). As a result, hackers or cyber criminals who are less sophisticated may see a space of opportunity to hack legacy systems that are inaccessible. Therefore, it is a threat to all the IPv6 networks that are global operational (Ard 44-48). Moreover, threats that are not evolved yet can exploit IPv6 security by analyzing unknown vulnerabilities, as new attacks will breach into new features supported by IPv6. In addition, IPv6 was designed and developed on the basis of IPv4, government or federal networks operating in an IPv6 environment are at risks and can encounter a serious vulnerability anytime (Ard 44-48). A review was carried out in a study, where two Denial of Service attacks were analyzed along with a discussion of interoperability issues of Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) and Network Address Translation (NAT) (Ard 44-48). After examination, it was found that IPsec has many potential benefits for ensuring security, however, network administrators do not have the freedom to widely deploy IPsec, unless addressed some non-technical issues. Moreover, Denial of Service attacks that are depended on Transmission control protocol (TCP) floods will affect both versions i.e. IPv4 and IPv6, although, application attacks related to broadcasting are not so common on IPv6 as compare to IPv4. (Caldwell 4) published an article associated with perspectives pertaining to an executive Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) to be considered as a national security problem for the United States. Likewise, IPv6 has significant positive impact on the nation and it can be considered as a financial market bailout. Moreover, the struggle of spreading knowledge in the commercial markets will establish a group of knowledgeable experts. 4 Business Issues 4.1 Business Benefits of IPv6 The IPv6 offers about 3.4 x 1038 motionless IP addresses that are the most significant advantage of IPv6. The information states that the mentioned numbers of IP addresses are more than the sand grains on the world’s beaches. Another benefit related to the IPv6 is that it provides IP addresses without dropping signals due to the all the time attached PDAs able to circulate WI-Fi, Bluetooth and GSM ("Ip Infusion Unveils Tunneling Technologies for Ipv4/ipv6." 2-4). On the contrary, many countries except China, Japan and the US, fast transfer of the new 32-bit addressing scheme are not implemented. David Holder, the chairman of task force IPv6 in Scotland and the UK IPv6 training and consultancy firm named Erions managing director said “In some cases there are government mandates to say ‘we will move to IPv6, and solve the problem’ but in other places people are rather reluctant to do that.” ("Ip Infusion Unveils Tunneling Technologies for Ipv4/ipv6." 2-4). Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecommunication companies are convinced to adopt IPv6 in the Beijing Olympic Games as articulated by the experts. Numerous consumers, prior to applying IPv6 are waiting for its successful implementation and its effects. The router manufacturer and technical director UK and Ireland of F5, Owen Cole says (Courtney 2008): “The average enterprise wants to see the technology deployed and proven before they do it themselves. It is not necessarily a lack of desire, more because (migrating to IPv6) is such a massive project for them, combined with the cost of training and disruption.” Cole explains the self-observed projects and experiments related to the migration of IPv6. However, these networks are more congested similar to the academic or NHs environments as compared to the web-facing and internet business system because their downtime is decisive. Cole describes the amalgamation of IPv6 and IPv4 he says (Courtney 52-54): “The problem is that IPv6 and IPv4 is not Network allocation table (Nat) interchangeable, so a router on an IPv6 network will not talk to anything on an IPv4 network, and a lot of things are not going to work unless you put in a controller that can actually do the translation between the two.” The organizations do not risk the incapable access of the systems that are based on IPv4 by migrating towards IPv6. Moreover, expenses related to the training of the entire network staff is required in order to transfer from IPv4 to IPv6. The routers that were purchased recently i.e. three or four years back also support IPv6 and IPv4 (Courtney 52-54). The other routers must need an upgrade related to the memory and flash in order to perform well. In addition, as of Windows XP above, by default the Microsoft operating systems support IPv6. 5 Current Deployment Status of IPv6 Fig. 2 demonstrates the IPv4 and IPv6 transformation along with interoperability with software and hardware. Likewise, elements in the table can be allocated into four separate domains i.e. interoperability with hardware and software, technology education, return on investment and planning. Figure 2 The first element named as interoperability issues with hardware and software impacts a broad area of issues pertaining to legacy systems such as workstations with windows 98 operating systems, as they require an operating system replacement for making IPv6 compatible. Figure 3 Fig. 3 shows a procedure that can be used for ensuring compatibility of hardware and software with IPv6. Likewise, IPv6 cannot be considered as a component of hardware, as it can be installed as an upgrade to the operating system (Che and Lewis 22-29). Hardware developed after the year 2000 is IPv6 compatible, however, legacy hardware older than 2000 have compatibility issues that can be solved by a research and development of port scanning applications that will be IPv6 compatible (Che and Lewis 22-29). Likewise, the port scanning application will be depends on how the application is coded and how it may be accessible to the IP layer of the OSI. Software houses developing large scale applications already integrate support for IPv6. Moreover, customized applications developed by small software houses are built for small medium enterprises requires thorough testing for meeting conformance requirements. Consequently, the best possible way is recommended or to analyze their complexity for further modifications. Furthermore, costs associated with planning or deployment will be analyzed by the organization who wants to upgrade to IPv6 (Che and Lewis 22-29). 5.1 IPv6 and Web Services As defined by the WWW consortium, a web service is considered as an application or software that is recognized by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) (Lee and Chen 1188-1193). Likewise, the interfaces and bindings have the capacity to integrate, define and discover XML artifacts align with the support of direct interactions from other applications or software via XML compliant messages travelling via Internet protocols (Lee and Chen 1188-1193). Moreover, web services are also applicable to one or more than one application. However, to deploy a common architecture for these services, protocols and web service standards and procedures are utilized. Figure 5 demonstrates XML based web services along with standards and protocols (Lee and Chen 1188-1193). The UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) defines the registration and a search mechanism of web services. WSDL (Web Services Description Language) defines the description of web services. SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) defines the service protocol for end to end users. However, for making these services work, a translation mechanism is required between the server and client. As XML data is transmitted over the Internet, hackers may exploit vulnerabilities to breach security. For addressing web service security, Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) can be deployed, as it is available in both IPv4 and IPv6 (Lee and Chen 1188-1193). 6 Future of IPv6 Google and Facebook, the two giants that listed in those 200 organizations are already converted from IPv4 to IPv6. Likewise, considerations that need to be examined includes the effectiveness of handling IPv6 addresses and what are the expectations for websites that are round the clock activity on the Internet.In spite of investing massive amount of both money and time, there are so significant advantages for the small medium enterprises (SME’s). Moreover, statistics from the Internet Society (ISOC) highlights 99.95 % will not be able to find any difference. If an online business earning revenue from websites supporting electronic commerce and maintain web servers, it will not make any precautionary measures when IPv4 is expected to be useless. Moreover, the newly developed routing technologies and routers are compatible with IPv6 along with the operating systems such as Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 that are also IPv6 supported. Likewise, SME’s can continue operations on IPv4, as the online businesses will not have any interest to seize data transmission for Ipv4 users. Therefore, it is mandatory to support IPv4 till the existence of IPv4 users globally. The addressable space for IPv6 in the future will be noticed by long alphanumeric values. In addition, network address translation will no longer be an issue in IPv6 compatible network devices. Having all those features, the primary advantage is that IPv6 will offer trillions and trillions of IP addresses for the future and next generation networks fulfilling address space requirements for generations to generations. Future work will also address the following factors: Characterize the effectiveness of IPSec to prevent attacks which rely on spoofed source addresses, both within and outside the target network Investigate requirements for a protocol which would allow IPSec authentication and the checksum computation before Network Address Translation Assess the impact of Multicast Addresses on the IPv6 Smurf attacks, both with and without IPSec on a test network using the advertised “Hacker’s tools” Test the TCP flood attack, both with and without IPSec, on patched OS’s on an IPv6 network 7 Conclusion In the introduction, we have thoroughly discussed how IPv4 is evolving along with the history and adoption of IPv6 country by country. As initially it was launched for connecting government offices. Moreover, we have also discussed reasons for making IPv6 a primary Internet protocol for business. Likewise, a detailed internal semantics of IPv6 have been discussed. Moreover, eight factors supporting IPv6 are also discussed in detail. Furthermore, we have also discussed detailed technical and security variances of IPv4 and IPv6. Moreover, the overview of the currentIPv6 adoption status is also demonstrated with the aid of facts and figures. In addition, the future of IPv6 is also discussed. The transition to IPv6 has become an essential requirement strategically. The primary benefit for IPv6 is not only the address space, there are other significant advantages such as long term cost savings and robust data transmission. However, transition methods are considered as short term solutions for the evolution of Internet Protocol, network deployment with only a single routing policy is considered to be agile and elastic against the status of the network. Moreover, IPv6 transition is adopted by small countries that are ahead in number, as compare to financially stable countries. Likewise, issues linked to legacy hardware for compatibility with IPv6 globally, time is required. Organizations or small medium enterprises must be aware of investing in IPv4 networks, as the old security feature supported by IPv4 is NAT that cannot bring long term benefits. Furthermore, awareness and sharing IPv6 knowledge to the users is essential prior to the deployment or convergence. However, one factor is not predictable at this point i.e. how much more IPv4 will last. In summary, IPv6 will replace the IPv4 entirely and will finally become the main stream of the Internet world. 8 Work Cited Ard, Julie Boxwell. "Investigation of Network Security Risks Inherent to IPv6." Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Warfare & Security (2010): 44-8. Print. Beijnum, Iljitsch van. Running IPv6 . Berkeley, CA : Apress ; c2006.Print. Caldwell, Matthew F. "IPv6 as National-Security Issue." Network World 25.48 (2008): 4. Print. Che, Xianhui, and Dylan Lewis. "IPv6: Current Deployment and Migration Status." International Journal of Research & Reviews in Computer Science 1.2 (2010): 22-9. Print. "Internet Protocol Version 6." Network Dictionary (2007): 255-. Print. IPv6." Information Technology Journal 7.8 (2008): 1188-93. Print. Infusion Unveils Tunneling Technologies for Ipv4/ipv6." UNIX Update 21.4 (2010): 2-4. Print. Loshin, Peter. IPv6 Clearly Explained . San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 1999. Print. LIMONCELLI, THOMAS A. "Successful Strategies for IPv6 Rollouts. really." Communications of the ACM 54.4 (2011): 44-8. Print. Lee, L. T., and C. W. Chen. "The Web Services with Security Mechanisms Base on IPv4 and "Ip Read More