Design and implementation scheme for deploying IPv4 over IPv6 tunnel

IPv4 to IPv6 transition is an inevitable process when deploying IPv6 networks within the present IPv4 Internet. The two protocols are expected to coexist for a number of years during the transition period. A number of transition techniques exist to address the various needs of different networks. One of them is tunneling mechanism. Tunneling means encapsulation of one protocol into another one so that the encapsulated protocol is send as payload on the network. In this paper, a scheme is presented for tunneling of IPv4 packets in IPv6 packets. This scheme will be useful in the future when most of the networks would be converted into IPv6 networks involving minimum IPv4 routing.This technique, coupled with the dual stack approach, enables IPv4 applications to run and interact with other IPv4 applications in both IPv4 and IPv6 network environments without any modification and recompilation, and without NAT, nor any application proxy or gateway.