Performance comparison of IPv4 and IPv6 in open source router distributions

Sammanfattning: With IPv4 addresses running out there is a need for IPv6 compatible routers. This study aims to find open source routers that have support for IPv6 and compare it in terms of performance to IPv4 to see if there are any differences in performance. In addition to this the chosen routers have also been evaluated in terms of security and other desired features. An experiment and a theoretical study evaluating this was carried out to help companies and individuals wanting to use IPv6 make choices in what open source router to use. Different performance factors were taken in to consideration as well as security features. There were no significant differences between IPv6 and IPv4 with IPv4 slightly beating IPv6. Between the routers there were some differences with the VyOS router outperforming pfSense in terms of throughput but pfSense had lower latency values. Depending on the requirements for a specific network environment the results of this study could be used to pick an IPv6-enabled open source router distribution.