Addressing and Planning¶
Addresses are the foundation everything else in a network is built on. This unit covers the address formats of the two Internet protocols, IPv4 and IPv6: how addresses are written, how they are grouped into prefixes, and how a prefix handed to an organisation is split up into a structured, maintainable addressing plan. We also look at network address translation — NAT and NAPT in IPv4, NAT64 and DNS64 as an IPv6 transition mechanism — and at what NAT means for applications that need to establish connections through it.
Learning Goals¶
Goals for this unit
- Read and write IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in their standard notations, and know the special-purpose address blocks and what they are reserved for.
- Understand prefixes and prefix length, and how address blocks are subdivided and aggregated.
- Be able to design an addressing plan for an organisation, for both IPv4 and IPv6, and explain the trade-offs behind the structure you chose.
- Explain how NAT and NAPT work, and what they mean for end-to-end connectivity.
- Understand NAT64/DNS64 as an IPv6 transition mechanism, and the main approaches to NAT traversal.
Preparation¶
Go through the following preparation material before we meet in class:
Plan your time
The readings for this week are considerably more extensive than in previous weeks. Please set aside more time than usual.