Preparing for an IPv6 World with LXI Instruments

Tom Fay
Agilent Technologies
TLO Platforms, Infrastructure and Connectivity Solutions
Loveland, CO USA
Abstract IPv6 has been an evolving, relatively mature, but
poorly-adopted internet protocol standard for a number of years.
The original motivation for IPv6 was to work around exhausting
the IPv4 address space used by the original internet protocol.
Already, the last large free blocks of IPv4 addresses have been
allocated to particular geographic regions for them to suballocate within their regions. In many regions of the world, IPv6
addresses will soon become the only addresses available for
remote access to new devices, including remote access to
instruments supporting LAN control connections.
IPv6 brings advantages of its own, as well. Stateless address
autoconfiguration (SLAAC) makes it easier to set up IPv6 devices
with stable global and local IPv6 addresses with nothing but
IPv6-enabled routers, which are becoming much more common.
Coupled with LXI-supported zero configuration hostnames via
mDNS, that reduces the administration required to set up LANbased instruments in a test system.
In practical terms, IPv4 will continue to see wide use, so LXI
instruments will maintain support for IPv4 while adding support
for IPv6. Most LAN-based instruments are used only on the local
subnet, which can continue to use and re-use the local DHCPsupplied IPv4 addresses for instruments. It is only when subnets
become IPv6-only or when instrument connections must be made
over the WAN that IPv6 becomes more important.
This paper describes key aspects of IPv6 as they relate to
instrument control and how the LXI Consortium has adopted a
new LXI IPv6 standard to make observing and controlling LXI
instruments over IPv6 easy. Among the IPv6 aspects covered are
real-world experiences setting up IPv6 access to instruments with
existing networking infrastructure.
Index TermsIPv4, IPv6, LXI, HiSLIP, LAN, VISA, IVI.

I. IPV6 HISTORY AND MOTIVATION

The long-anticipated exhaustion of available free IPv4
addresses reached a turning point in early 2011, when the
central authority responsible for allocating free IPv4 address
blocks finally ran out of address blocks to allocate to regional
authorities [1]. Shortly after this, the Asia-Pacific authority
began a more restrictive process for allocating the addresses
they had been assigned to conserve them for the most urgent
needs [2]. For many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and
commercial users of the internet, that makes it more important

978-1-4673-0700-0/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

to find an alternative to the IPv4 addressing scheme to allow

continued growth in the use of the internet.
IPv6 is a relatively-mature standard that was developed in
part to provide a much larger number of IP addresses as IPv4
addresses were used up. The switch to IPv6 has been slowed
by the lack of urgency to switch and the cost complexity of
conversion. However, in June 2011, on World IPv6 Day, a
number of destination web sites, ISPs, and networking
infrastructure companies temporarily enabled IPv6 support to
allow testing of the world-wide readiness of switching to IPv6
[3]. Few issues were found with this test, and, in June, 2012,
on World IPv6 Launch day, many of the same participants
officially enabled IPv6 support permanently [4].
II. LXI AND IPV6
The LXI Consortium was founded to enable and promote
use of LAN technology to connect and control instruments.
Early developments of the consortium were standards and
accompanying conformance tests for basic LAN connectivity
requirements intended to make the promise of LAN for
inexpensive, capable, and flexible instrument connectivity a
reality. Since then, the LXI Consortium has capitalized on
improvements in LAN technology like increased LAN speed
that enabled higher performance connections with few, if any,
changes required of end users. Similarly, the LXI Consortium
has adopted new protocols like zero-configuration mDNS
protocol to enable automatically finding LXI instruments on
the local LAN and discovering their identities and capabilities.
Anticipating the need for IPv6 support, the IVI Foundation
developed the IVI HiSLIP (Highspeed LAN Instrument
Protocol) standard which provided instrument-like control with
IPv6 compatibility [5]. In May 2011, the LXI Consortium
adopted the LXI HiSLIP standard building on the IVI HiSLIP
standard [6]. This standard described how LXI devices must
incorporate HiSLIP support as well as specifying LXI tests for
conformance.
Following the adoption of the LXI HiSLIP standard, the
LXI Consortium has worked on standardizing how LXI
instruments enable and capitalize on IPv6 for instrument
connection and control; the result of that work is the LXI IPv6
standard and test procedure [7]. This standard was formally
adopted by the LXI Consortium in June, 2012, and that same
month, the first LXI instruments to adopt that standard were
certified as LXI IPv6 compliant.

Figure 1: First LXI IPv6 Compliant Instrument

III. GOALS OF LXI IPV6
The LXI IPv6 standard had the following goals:
Enable control of LXI instruments over IPv6 while
continuing to allow use of IPv4.
Allow viewing LXI instrument web pages and
XML identity data over IPv6 as well as IPv4.
Provide auto-generated, stable global and linklocal IPv6 addresses for instruments.
Aid in the use of IPv6 addresses to interact with
instruments.
Support easy mingling of IPv4-connected and
IPv6-connected instruments on the same physical
LAN.
Maintain IPv4 compatibility for LXI instruments.
IV. THE PROBLEMS AND PROMISE OF IPV6
While developing the LXI IPv6 specification, both the
problems and promise of IPv6 became evident.
Problems:
The huge IPv6 address range results in larger, less
memorable
IP
addresses
(example: fe80::218a28:ae2:53e3:5419)
o LXI requires that IPv6 addresses appear
on the LXI instrument web page, in its
LXI Identification XML, and in its
mDNS service announcements so that
instrument users should be able to find
the address to copy and paste where they
need to use it: no memorization or typing
mistakes to overcome.
Temporary global IPv6 addresses
change
periodically, creating an unstable address for
devices.
o LXI IPv6 requires that devices avoid
temporary IPv6 addresses by default.
Support for IPv6 varies across different operating
systems, networking hardware, and internet
service providers.
o LXI IPv6 requires support of the most
useful, and common, capabilities of IPv6,
such as automatic link-local and global
address generation.
Promise:

IPv6 allows stable, always-available, link-local

addresses that enable hard-coded instrument addresses
that work regardless of instrument configuration
changes (example: moving an instrument from one
subnet to another).
o LXI IPv6 requires stable link-local IPv6
addresses for instruments
Stateless global address generation via SLAAC
(Stateless Address Autoconfiguration) enables much
easier configuration of networks of devices with
globally accessible IPv6 addresses.
o LXI IPv6 requires that instruments support
SLAAC for global address generation.
V. IPV6 PRACTICALITIES

IPv6 as a technology requires cooperative support by a

number of different components and players. Routers must
support IPv6 address assignment (SLAAC and DHCPv6) and
IPv6 routing. Firewalls must permit inbound and outbound
IPv6 traffic. Operating systems must support IPv6 as a
transport mechanism while maintaining support of IPv4 (dual
stack technology). Corporate LAN backbones must support
passing IPv6 traffic and providing DNSv6 name/IPv6-address
resolution. Internet Service Providers must support assigning
IPv6 addresses and passing IPv6 traffic. Instrument firmware
must support accepting connections via IPv6 (examples: IPv6
connections via HiSLIP or raw sockets).
Instrument
connectivity software must support requesting and configuring
IPv6 connections (example: VISA).
The LXI Consortium experienced the issues related to this
coordinated support requirement first hand as the LXI IPv6
standard and prototypes were developed. As examples,
corporate PC configuration standards sometimes resulted in
PC firewalls configured to block all inbound/outbound IPv6
traffic. Routers with sufficient support for IPv6 to enable
exploring the technology were hard to find. Finally, PC
operating systems needed to be configured to support IPv6 and
often lacked key capabilities like IPv6-enabled web browsers.
However, the pace of IPv6 support increased significantly
while the LXI IPv6 standard was under development. By the
time the LXI IPv6 standard was adopted, the situation had
improved dramatically. Consumer switch-routers with IPv6
support are much easier to find, ISPs are rolling out their IPv6
support to their customers, corporate IT departments are
enabling LAN configurations for IPv6, and operating systems
now routinely provide good IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack support with
IPv6 support enabled by default.
With the release of the LXI IPv6 standard, the LXI
Consortium has focused on enabling IPv6, in the instrument,
that is compatible with the most common IPv6 features
emerging in the world today.

VI. IPV6 TOGETHER WITH IPV6

LXI recognizes that IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity will
continue to be needed side by side for some time.
Use of IPv4 will continue for the forseeable future for
instrument control, particularly for instruments used on the
local LAN, where automatically assigned, locally usable IPv4
addresses are routinely available from networking
infrastructure. The LXI standards support this use model even
while adding IPv6 as an option for instrument connectivity.
Instrument users will be drawn to IPv6 when globallyaccessible IP addresses are needed for remote access but IPv4
addresses are not available. IPv6 support may also be required
by LAN configuration or organizational policy. When this
happens, LXI instruments will be ready for IPv6 support.
VII. CONCLUSION
The LXI IPv6 specification, and LXI instruments which
implement it, are positioned for the future, where IPv6 use will
be routine, while still supporting IPv4 connectivity as a viable
connection alternative well into the future.
REFERENCES
[1] L. Smith, I. Lipner, Free pool of IPv4 address space
depleted, Number Resource Organization, February 2011,
[Online]. Available: http://www.nro.net/news/ipv4-freepool-depleted
[2] Stage 3 delegation FAQ, APNIC, [Online]. Available:
http://www.apnic.net/community/ipv4exhaustion/exhaustion-and-network-operators/ipv4-stage3faq
[3] 2011 world IPV6 day, Internet Society, June 2011,
[Online]. Available:
http://www.internetsociety.org/ipv6/archive-2011-worldipv6-day
[4] World IPv6 launch on June 6, 2012, to bring permanent
IPv6 deployment, Internet Society, June 2012, [Online].
Available:

http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/blog/2012/
01/world-ipv6-launch-on-june-6-2012-to-bringpermanent-ipv6-deployment/
[5] IVI-6.1: High-speed LAN instrument protocol (HiSLIP),
IVI Foundation, February 2011, [Online]. Available:

http://www.ivifoundation.org/downloads/Class%20S
pecifications/IVI-6.1_HiSLIP-1.1-2011-02-24.pdf
[6]

LXI HiSLIP extended function, LXI Consortium, May

2011, [Online]. Available:
http://www.lxistandard.org/Documents/Specifications/LXI
_HiSLIP_Extended_Function_v1_01.pdf

[7] LXI extended function IPv6, LXI Consortium, June

2012, [Online]. Available:

http://www.lxistandard.org/Documents/Specifications
/LXI_IPv6_2012_3_14.pdf