IPv6 Application Development

8/28/2008

TCP/Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is a connectionless, unreliable datagram protocol used primarily for addressing and routing packets between hosts. Connectionless means that a session is not established before exchanging data. Unreliable means that delivery is not guaranteed. IPv6 always makes a best-effort attempt to deliver a packet. An IPv6 packet might be lost, delivered out of sequence, duplicated, or delayed. IPv6 does not attempt to recover from these types of errors. The acknowledgment of packets delivered and the recovery of lost packets are done by a higher-layer protocol, such as TCP.

This section describes how the Windows Embedded CE operating system (OS) implements IPv6. Microsoft TCP/IPv6 protocol suite is examined from the bottom up. Network traces are used to illustrate key concepts. This material is intended for network engineers and support professionals who are already familiar with TCP/IP.

In This Section

For All Platforms:

Core Protocol Stack for IPv6: Describes the core protocol stack for IPv6, which includes Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6), Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD), and Neighbor Discovery (ND). This section explains IPv6 addressing, discusses IPv6 implementations, duplicate IP address detection, Classless Interdomain Routing (CIDR), Multihoming, and IP Multicasting for IPv6.

Assigning an IPv6 Address to a Device: Describes how IPv6 addresses are assigned to a device, including default address selection and configuring IPv6 interface attributes.

For Windows Embedded CE:

TCP/IPv6 Architectural Model: Describes how IPv6 fits into the architecture that Windows Embedded CE uses to communicate.

Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) for IPv6: Describes the NDIS interface that TCP/IP uses to communicate with network card drivers.

TCP/IPv6 Troubleshooting Tools: Describes network tools that are useful when troubleshooting IPv6 network problems, including the IPv6 tool.

For Windows Mobile:

Converting to IPv6: Describes implementation considerations for converting an Application from IPv4 to IPv4/IPv6.

IPv6 and IPv4 Coexistence: Provides information about how IPv6 nodes communicate with IPv4 nodes over an IPv4 network.

Related Sections

For Windows Embedded CE:

IPv6 Security: Presents security information and best practices for IPv6.

TCP/IP Architectural Model: Provides an illustration that shows how TCP/IP fits into the architecture that Windows Embedded CE uses for communications.

Dual Stack Architecture: Describes the dual protocol stack that supports 32-bit IPv4 addresses and 128-bit IPv6 addresses. Windows CE .NET 4.1 and later supports this dual stack.

TCP/IP and Windows Sockets: Describes how applications access the TCP/IP stack through the Windows Sockets (Winsock) interface.

Network Utilities: Describes network utilities that are useful when troubleshooting IPv4 network problems, including IPConfig, Netstat, Ping, Route, IPv6tun, and Tracert.

Other Resources

Internet Protocol Version 6