that of any other fragmented packet sent recently* with the same
   Source Address and Destination Address.  If a Routing header is
   present, the Destination Address of concern is that of the final
   destination.






 
RFC 2460                   IPv6 Specification              December 1998


      * "recently" means within the maximum likely lifetime of a packet,
        including transit time from source to destination and time spent
        awaiting reassembly with other fragments of the same packet.
        However, it is not required that a source node know the maximum
        packet lifetime.  Rather, it is assumed that the requirement can
        be met by maintaining the Identification value as a simple, 32-
        bit, "wrap-around" counter, incremented each time a packet must
        be fragmented.  It is an implementation choice whether to
        maintain a single counter for the node or multiple counters,
        e.g., one for each of the node's possible source addresses, or
        one for each active (source address, destination address)
        combination.

   The initial, large, unfragmented packet is referred to as the
   "original packet", and it is considered to consist of two parts, as
   illustrated:

   original packet:

   +------------------+----------------------//-----------------------+
   |  Unfragmentable  |                 Fragmentable                  |
   |       Part       |                     Part                      |
   +------------------+----------------------//-----------------------+

      The Unfragmentable Part consists of the IPv6 header plus any
      extension headers that must be processed by nodes en route to the
      destination, that is, all headers up to and including the Routing
      header if present, else the Hop-by-Hop Options header if present,
      else no extension headers.

      The Fragmentable Part consists of the rest of the packet, that is,
      any extension headers that need be processed only by the final
      destination node(s), plus the upper-layer header and data.

   The Fragmentable Part of the original packet is divided into
   fragments, each, except possibly the last ("rightmost") one, being an
   integer multiple of 8 octets long.  The fragments are transmitted in
   separate "fragment packets" as illustrated:

   original packet:

   +------------------+--------------+--------------+--//--+----------+
   |  Unfragmentable  |    first     |    second    |      |   last   |
   |       Part       |   fragment   |   fragment   | .... | fragment |
   +------------------+--------------+--------------+--//--+----------+







 
RFC 2460                   IPv6 Specification              December 1998


   fragment packets:

   +------------------+--------+--------------+
   |  Unfragmentable  |Fragment|    first     |
   |       Part       | Header |   fragment   |
   +------------------+--------+--------------+

   +------------------+--------+--------------+
   |  Unfragmentable  |Fragment|    second    |
   |       Part       | Header |   fragment   |
   +------------------+--------+--------------+
                         o
                         o
                         o
   +------------------+--------+----------+
   |  Unfragmentable  |Fragment|   last   |
   |       Part       | Header | fragment |
   +------------------+--------+----------+

   Each fragment packet is composed of:

      (1) The Unfragmentable Part of the original packet, with the
          Payload Length of the original IPv6 header changed to contain
          the length of this fragment packet only (excluding the length
          of the IPv6 header itself), and the Next Header field of the
          last header of the Unfragmentable Part changed to 44.

      (2) A Fragment header containing:

               The Next Header value that identifies the first header of