# IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the [communications protocol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_protocol) that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the [Internet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet). IPv6 was developed by the [Internet Engineering Task Force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Engineering_Task_Force) (IETF) to deal with the long-anticipated problem of [IPv4 address exhaustion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4_address_exhaustion), and is intended to replace [IPv4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4). In December 1998, IPv6 became a Draft Standard for the IETF, which subsequently ratified it as an [Internet Standard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Standard) on 14 July 2017. Devices on the Internet are assigned a unique [IP address](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address) for identification and location definition. With the rapid growth of the Internet after commercialization in the 1990s, it became evident that far more addresses would be needed to connect devices than the IPv4 address space had available. By 1998, the IETF had formalized the successor protocol. IPv6 uses 128-[bit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit) addresses, theoretically allowing 2128, or approximately 3.4×1038 total addresses. The actual number is slightly smaller, as multiple ranges are reserved for special use or completely excluded from use. The two protocols are not designed to be [interoperable](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interoperable), and thus direct communication between them is impossible, complicating the move to IPv6. However, several [transition mechanisms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_transition_mechanism) have been devised to rectify this. IPv6 provides other technical benefits in addition to a larger addressing space. In particular, it permits hierarchical address allocation methods that facilitate [route aggregation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_aggregation) across the Internet, and thus limit the expansion of [routing tables](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routing_table). The use of multicast addressing is expanded and simplified, and provides additional optimization for the delivery of services. Device mobility, security, and configuration aspects have been considered in the design of the protocol. IPv6 addresses are represented as eight groups of four [hexadecimal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal) digits each, separated by colons. The full representation may be shortened; for example, *2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334* becomes *2001:db8::8a2e:370:7334*. Source: Wikipedia --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://doc.bitbrowser.net/fingerprint/2.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.