There are three types of IPv6 addresses:
- Unicast - An IPv6 unicast address uniquely identifies an interface on an IPv6-enabled device. As shown in the figure, a source IPv6 address must be a unicast address.
- Multicast - An IPv6 multicast address is used to send a single IPv6 packet to multiple destinations.
- Anycast - An IPv6 anycast address is any IPv6 unicast address that can be assigned to multiple devices. A packet sent to an anycast address is routed to the nearest device having that address. Anycast addresses are beyond the scope of this course.
Unlike IPv4, IPv6 does not have a broadcast address. However, there is an IPv6 all-nodes multicast address that essentially gives the same result.