Nmap/IPv6 ranges

Mailing list post about the general scheme of iterating over network ranges, and then iterating over individual addresses within those ranges.

• http://seclists.org/nmap-dev/2011/q2/1184

Summary of expected behavior for large/small local/remote combinations

The idea is to automatically do the right thing. Multicast ping large networks when possible, otherwise show an error. Small networks are fine to unicast ping if we can't do multicast. "Large" and "small" are somewhat arbitrary, but the threshold is probably at 2³² or below.

Imagine an option -Pm for "multicast ping." This ping type would be the default for local IPv6 networks, just as -PR is the default for local IPv6 networks. Specifying a different ping type like -PS would disable

	default	-Pm	other (-PS)
Small IPv6 local network	multicast	multicast	unicast
Large IPv6 local network	multicast	multicast	error
Small IPv6 remote network	unicast	error	unicast
Large IPv6 remote network	error	error	error

Brainstorming

We should recognize square bracket notation for IPv6 addresses. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-3.2.2