Practical No : 16

Create IPV6 based small computer network using a simulator.

I. Practical Significance :
a. Student should be able to study IPV6.
II. Relevant Program Outcomes (POS) :
 Discipline knowledge : Apply computer engineering discipline specific knowledge to solve core computer
engineering related problems.
 Experiments and Practice : Plan to perform experiments and practices to use the results to solve broad
based computer engineering problems.
 Engineering tools : Apply relevant computer technologies and tools with an understanding of the limition.
 Communication : Communicate effectively in oral and written form.
III. Competency and Practical Skills :
This practical is expect to develop the following skills in you.
 To study IPV6 concepts.
 To set network using a simulator.

IV. Relevant Course Outcomes :

 Configure different TCP/IP services.
V. Practical Outcome (POS) :
 Understand basic of TCP/IP utilities.
 Understand networking commands.
VI. Relevant Affective domain related outcomes :
 Follow safely measure.
 Follow ethical practices.
VII. Minimum Theoretical Background :

Proposition 1.

 The characteristics of IPv6

 Larger address space: Increased address size from 32 bits to 128 bits

 Streamlined protocol header: Improves packet-forwarding efficiency

 Stateless autoconfiguration: The ability for nodes to determine their own address

 Multicast: Increased use of efficient one-to-many communications

 Jumbograms: The ability to have very large packet payloads for greater efficiency

 Network layer security: Encryption and authentication of communications

 Quality of service (QoS) capabilities: QoS markings of packets and flow labels that help identify priority
traffic

 Anycast: Redundant services using nonunique addresses

 Mobility: Simpler handling of mobile or roaming nodes

 

Fig.IPV6 addressing in a network simulator

 Set up the network configuration

Use the CORE Network Simulator to set up the network shown in the diagram below with one router, two switches,
and four hosts. We will investigate IPv6 addressing fundamentals using this simple network.

To make the network diagram easier to read, use the View → Show menu command to hide all information except
node names (to clean up the display). Also, you can click on Selection Tool and grab the text that represents each
node name and move it to a spot where it is not hidden by the link. Then, use the Configure right-click menu

command on each node to change the node name so that the network look like the following image:

 Configure the simulated nodes

We want to study the same procedures we would use in a real network without allowing the CORE Network Emulator
to set the network configurations for us, so we will clear the IP addresses that the CORE Network Emulator configures
by default on every interface before starting the simulation.
Right-click on each router and host and select the Configure contextual menu command. Then, clear the IPv4 address
and IPv6 address field on every node.
Also, since we will not use dynamic routing in this scenario, we will change the settings on the router r1 so that
dynamic routing protocols are not started when the node starts up.

In the Configure dailogue box, after clearing the IP addresses on both of the router’s interfaces, click on
the Services… button, then clear the OSPFv2 and OSPFv3 services. Also clear the radvd service (because we will
explore stateless address auto configuration in a later post). Then press the Apply button.

 Start the simulation

Start the network emulation by clicking in the start the session icon in the tool bar or by clicking on the menu
command, Session → Start.

Examine the link-local unicast IPv6 addresses

After we start the network simulation we created, we expect to observe that the interfaces on each simulated router
and on each simulated host have link-local IPv6 addresses automatically configured.
We will also run some simple network tests and observe the results. With the current configuration, nodes on the
same link should be able to communicate with each other but nodes that are separated by the router should not be
able to communicate with each other1. For example, host h1 should be able to ping host h2, but not host h4.
Link-local unicast IPv6 address, defined
When an IPv6 interface starts up, it is required to automatically configure itself with a link-localunicast IPv6
address2. Link-local IPv6 addresses consist of a specific 64-bit IPv6 prefix, fe80::/64, and a unique 64-bit interface
identifier derived from the MAC address of the interface3.
Link-Local unicast IPv6 addresses are created for purposes such as auto-address configuration and neighbor
discovery on a single link. A link may be a point-to-point connection between two interfaces or a switched layer-2
domain such as an Ethernet network.
Link-local unicast addresses only work on the link on which they are configured because IPv6 routers are required to
not forward any packets with link-local source or destination addresses to other links.
 Using the ifconfig Observer Widget
We can use the Core Network Emulator’s Observer Widget tool to view the interface configuration on each node and
take note of the IPv6 address on each interface. Click on the Observer Widget tool (the magnifying glass icon in the
toolbar) and select the ifconfig widget. Then, hover the mouse pointer over each node to see the displayed interface
configuration.

Using the ip command

Alternatively, we can open up a terminal window on each node running in the simulated network and use normal Linux
commands to view the configuration
Double-click on any node to open a terminal window (for example, host h1). Then, execute the command.
Record all IPv6 addresses
Write down the IP addresses and MAC addresses on each node in a table for future reference. This will be useful
when we are running programs like ping where we need to know the IPv6 address of the destination node. Knowing
the MAC addresses is useful when we are analyzing packets in the Wireshark protocol analyzer.

In our example, the CORE Network Emulator assigns MAC addresses, in numerical order4, starting with
00:00:00:aa:00:00 and incrementing by one for every other interface attached to a link.
After inspecting each node using either the Observer Widget or the Linux ip command, we generate the following
table:

Node name Interface MAC address IPv6 addresses

Router r1 eth0 00:00:00:aa:00:00 fe80::200:ff:feaa:0/64

eth1 00:00:00:aa:00:03 fe80::200:ff:feaa:3/64

Host h1 eth0 00:00:00:aa:00:01 fe80::200:ff:feaa:1/64

Host h2 eth0 00:00:00:aa:00:02 fe80::200:ff:feaa:2/64

Host h3 eth0 00:00:00:aa:00:04 fe80::200:ff:feaa:4/64

Host h4 eth0 00:00:00:aa:00:05 fe80::200:ff:feaa:5/64

VII Questions :
Write answers to Q Q Q_ (Teacher shall allot the questions)
1. List the characteristics of IPv6.
2. What is IPV6 address?
3. What is network simulator?

Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education 117

 Data Communication Computer Network (224/4)

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