IPv6 - Special Addresses

Version 6 has spghtly complex structure of IP address than that of IPv4. IPv6 has reserved a few addresses and address notations for special purposes. See the table below:

As shown in the table, the address 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0/128 does not specify anything and is said to be an unspecified address. After simppfying, all the 0s are compacted to ::/128.

In IPv4, the address 0.0.0.0 with netmask 0.0.0.0 represents the default route. The same concept is also appped to IPv6, address 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 with netmask all 0s represents the default route. After applying IPv6 rule, this address is compressed to ::/0.

Loopback addresses in IPv4 are represented by 127.0.0.1 to 127.255.255.255 series. But in IPv6, only 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1/128 represents the Loopback address. After loopback address, it can be represented as ::1/128.

Reserved Multicast Address for Routing Protocols

The above table shows the reserved multicast addresses used by interior routing protocol.

The addresses are reserved following the same rules of IPv4.

Reserved Multicast Address for Routers/Node

These addresses help routers and hosts to speak to available routers and hosts on a segment without being configured with an IPv6 address. Hosts use EUI-64 based auto-configuration to self-configure an IPv6 address and then speak to available hosts/routers on the segment by means of these addresses.