LOOPBACK ADDRESS IPV6 HOW TO

Click the below links to learn more about how to simplify and shorten an IPv6 address. This unspecified address is so lengthy and can be further simplified as ::/0. IPv4 and IPv6 routers will not forward packets with the unspecified address. (Example, the Operating System is configured to obtain an IP address dynamically using DHCP, and the machine is in the process of obtaining an IP address from the DHCP server) Unspecified address is used by an Operating System, before an IPv4 address or IPv6 address is configured on it. In IPv4, the IPv4 address used as Unspecified address is 0.0.0.0/0. Unspecified address in IPv6 is the IPv6 address with all binary bits set to '0'. This loopback address is so lengthy and can be further simplified as ::1/128. Rest of the addresses in 127.0.0.0/8 are not widely used. But almost all leading operating systems use the name 'localhost' to represent an IPv4 loopback address 127.0.0.1. In IPv4, we have an entire network (127.0.0.0/8) reserved as loopback addresses.

The loopback addresses are typically used by programmers for development and testing of network applications without even having network configurations. Whenever we communicate to a loopback address (both in IPv4 and IPv6) the TCP/IP protocol stack will loop the packets back on the same interface, without even leaving the interface. The loopback addresses (both in IPv4 and IPv6) is an address which represents the same interface of a computer.

Loopback address ipv6