[linux-help] Re: question..

[Steven Saner <ssaner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Feb 16, 2001 at 11:37:34AM +0530, Hareesh V H wrote:
> 
> hi! at a discussion, somebody asked me this: the unique ethernet addresses
> possible are 2^48 in number. then, what is the point in going for 128 bit
> addressing for IPv6 and the like, and i thought that ethernet is just one
> of the hardware technologies around, with all others like fddi, cddi, atm,
> proNET etc, remaining and so this magic number 2^48 does not hold. more,
> what about the 1000s of mobile hosts and tens of 1000s of people
> connecting from behind the phone lines using PPP? i thought that TCP/IP
> was/is still hardware independent and that is one of its major pluses. i
> would be obliged if someone could provide me with a more refined answer to
> the question above. hope its not another FAQ!
> 
> regards,
> Hareesh.

Hareesh

As you say, IP (v4 and v6) is in a layer above things like ethernet,
PPP, and the others that you mentioned. As a result it is independent
of the hardware layer. In theory, you need to have a large enough
domain of IP numbers to cover all the possible domains of all the
possible datalink types. That may be impractical, but it illustrates
why IPv6 would have a much larger domain than say ethernet (although
with as much ethernet as is out there today, that domain may need to
increase as well sometime). Does that answer your question, or are you
looking for something more in depth?

Steve


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