IPv6 Address Representation

IPv6 addresses consist of 8 groups of 16-bit hexadecimal values separated by colons (:). IPv6 addresses have the following format:

 aaaa:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa

Each aaaa is a 16-bit hexadecimal value, and each a is a 4-bit hexadecimal value. Following is a sample IPv6 address:

 3FFE:0000:0000:0001:0200:F8FF:FE75:50DF

You can omit the leading zeros of each 16-bit group, as follows:

 3FFE:0:0:1:200:F8FF:FE75:50DF

You can compress 16-bit groups of zeros to double colons (::) as shown in the following example, but only once per address:

3FFE::1:200:F8FF:FE75:50DF