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| -rw-r--r-- | README.rdoc | 74 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | lib/ipaddress/ipv6.rb | 2 |
2 files changed, 72 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/README.rdoc b/README.rdoc index c717078..f09d229 100644 --- a/README.rdoc +++ b/README.rdoc @@ -471,12 +471,80 @@ This is because "172.16.10.0/22" is not a network anymore, but an host address. - =IPv6 -Coming soon +IPAddress is not only fantastic for IPv4 addresses, it's also great to +handle IPv6 addresses family! Let's discover together how to use it in +our projects. + +== IPv6 addresses + +IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long, in contrast with IPv4 addresses +which are only 32 bits long. An IPv6 address is generally written as +eight groups of four hexadecimal digits, each group representing 16 +bits or two octect. For example, the following is a valid IPv6 +address: + + 1080:0000:0000:0000:0008:0800:200c:417a + +Letters in an IPv6 address are usually written downcase, as per +RFC. You can create a new IPv6 object using uppercase letters, but +they will be converted. + +=== Compression + +Since IPv6 addresses are very long to write, there are some +semplifications and compressions that you can use to shorten them. + + * Leading zeroes: all the leading zeroes within a group can be + omitted: "0008" would become "8" + + * A string of consecutive zeroes can be replaced by the string + "::". This can be only applied once. + +Using compression, the IPv6 address written above can be shorten into +the following, equivalent, address + + 1080::8:800:200c:417a + +This short version is often used in human representation. + +=== Network Mask + +As we used to do with IPv4 addresses, an IPv6 address can be written +using the prefix notation to specify the subnet mask: + + 1080::8:800:200c:417a/64 + +The /64 part means that the first 64 bits of the address are +representing the network portion, and the last 64 bits are the host +portion. + +== Using IPAddress with IPv6 addresses + +All the IPv6 representations we've just seen are perfectly fine when +you want to create a new IPv6 address: + + ip6 = IPAddress "1080:0000:0000:0000:0008:0800:200C:417A" + + ip6 = IPAddress "1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:417A" + + ip6 = IPAddress "1080::8:800:200C:417A" + +All three are giving out the same IPv6 object. The default subnet mask +for an IPv6 is 128, as IPv6 addresses don't have classes like IPv4 +addresses. If you want a different mask, you can go ahead and explicit +it: + + ip6 = IPAddress "2001:db8::8:800:200c:417a/64" + + + + + + -== Special addresses +== Special IPv6 addresses === Unspecified address diff --git a/lib/ipaddress/ipv6.rb b/lib/ipaddress/ipv6.rb index 3e71268..e8ca89c 100644 --- a/lib/ipaddress/ipv6.rb +++ b/lib/ipaddress/ipv6.rb @@ -193,7 +193,7 @@ module IPAddress; # #=> "20010db80000000000080800200c417a" # def to_hex - hexs.to_s + hexs.join("") end # Returns the address portion of an IPv6 object |