As the title says, I would like to understand what these things are and how they are related to each other (if they are), thank you all very much in advance!
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Using the analogy of your home to keep things simple…
DHCP is like you calling up City Hall to find out what address they’ve assigned your home and confirming how to send letters or packages to others.
IPv6 is used as method of identifying homes (ex. your specific home address) so that when someone wants to send you a letter it arrives at your house.
At home, DHCP is on the router that all your devices connect to. The router is therefore your ‘DHCP server’ on your network. Every device gets given an IP address by the DHCP server automatically when stuff gets connected. IP address allows devices on the network talk to each other and use the internet from that router. EG. You give ur mate your wifi password, he connects his phone to the router, and itll will be given an IP automatically.
IPv4 is the mainstream IP address format, example 192.168.1.1 is a standard IP address for a router. We may run out IP addresses one day as we’re running out of combinations. IPv6 was brought in, example format: ‘2a0b:c230:35:204c::7a6’.
Some groundwork first. An IP address is a series of numbers which identifies your computer on a network, so that traffic can go to the right device. IPv4 is the older, more commonly used version. It uses four numbers between 0 and 255, typically written as A.B.C.D (so for instance, 127.0.0.0 is a special IP address that refers to itself), which is 32 bits long when using binary representation.
DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, and is a method to assign IP addresses (along with some other stuff) to computers. The “dynamic” part of the name is really important here, it means IP addresses will be assigned on an “as-needed” basis. For instance, if you power off your computer in between two sessions, it’s possible that the IP addresses will be different. The purpose of DHCP is to remove the need to manually determine everyone’s IP address. If you’re managing a large network of devices, it’s a pain in the butt to configure a few hundred/thousand/tens of thousands of devices.
IPv6 is an updated version of IPv4. While it introduced a number of improvements, by far the biggest is in the addresses. Remember when I mentioned how IPv4 uses 4 numbers? If you do the math, it turns out that you can have a maximum of “only” about 4.3 billion addresses. It may sound like a lot, but we’ve actually been running out of IP addresses for a decade or two. The explosion of internet connected devices, computers, and servers have used up the address space. The big thing about IPv6 is that it increases the address space from 32 bits long to 128 bits long. In other words, IPv4 had 2^32 available addresses, IPv6 has 2^128, or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456. There’s no chance of running out of addresses under IPv6.
DHCP is the way computers get IP addresses and IPv6 are a type of IP addresses.
For computers to talk to each other they need to know who the one they are talking to is. For internet and other traffic using the internet protocol (IP), IP addresses are used.
Right now much of the internet still runs on IPv4 addresses but we are supposed to be moving to IPv6 since likely before you have been alive (even if you are 25 instead of literally 5).
DHCP can give out both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.
Basically when you turn a computer on and it doesn’t have an IP addressee configure it scream out into the void for anyone who is there to listen that it is there and wants an address. A DHCP server responds by assigning it an addressee that it uses from that point on.
DHCP in addition to just giving out addresses can also give out basic network configuration information like who the DNS server is and where the network gateway is and things like that.
Chances are you have a little box from your internet provider that functions as a DHCP server (and also as a DNS server a router and thousand other things).
Chances are also that it still just gives out IPv4 addresses.
DHCP works like this:
Computer: Hey! I’m new on this network and need an address on it. Anyone here help me out?
Router: Sure Computer. I’ve got this address available for you, use this. Also, here’s some other information on the network to help you out, use it if you want.
Computer: Thanks, I’m now using the address you gave me!
IPv6 is a newer way for devices on the internet or an intranet to talk to eachother. Compared to the older protocol we all grew up with (IPv4), it’s like a barcode compared to a QR code. Barcodes are older, less complex, less information dense but more widely used. QR codes are used by newer devices and have a lot more information and flexibility.
Not to beat a dead horse but pretty much everyone got it right.
DCHP is typically a service found on the router which allocates available IP addresses (ipv4/ipv6). A new device wants to connect to the router…the router assigns it an unused IP address so it can communicate to the internet.
IPv6 is just a newer version of IPv4 but slightly less used than IPv4.
I will use a telephone as examples here:
DHCP is like when you get a new phone with a new phone number that is only good for the life of the phone. When the phone dies you get another one and a new number for people to call you at. Except it is for your computer. DHCP is just changing your number where you call and get calls at. Just for your computer.
IPV6 is the phone number. Just you computer network cards phone number.
IPv6 is the new version of writing IPs that allows for many more addresses. The kind of IP you’re probably used to seeing (123.123.123.123) is IPv4 which is being (slowly) phased out because we have too many computers/devices that need IP addresses. IPv6 allows for many more things to connect to the internet and have their own unique address.
DHCP can be used at larger scale, but most commonly you’re going to see it in your house. Your router/modem acts as a DHCP server for all the things in your house (for most people, all the things on your wifi network). That way your one router can talk to the wider internet as one IP address and get the traffic for anything coming to your house and then the router/DHCP server pushes that traffic to the right device based on its internal IP address. If you ever see IP addresses that are 192.168.X.X those are always the ones your DHCP server is making. These mean nothing to the wider internet, only for your router/within your house. These can also change each time to turn off/on your device or leave/return to your house for something like your phone (the D stands for “dynamic”), although some routers will try to remember which device is which and keep their DHCP address consistent over time. In most cases leaving them dynamic is fine and easy, but if you want/need to use those local addresses to connect between computers on your network this can be helpful instead of having to adjust things every time based on the new address your DHCP gives to a device asking for an address on the network.
IPv6 is the successor to the current Internet Protocol, IPv4. It was designed to solve many of the issues that exist with IPv4, such as address exhaustion and security concerns. DHCP is a protocol that allows for the automatic assignment of IP addresses to devices on a network.
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