Largely taken from

• onemarcfifty
• What You Need to Know about IPv6 Link-Local Addresses

The IPv6 address is 128 bits (i.e. 16 bytes) long and is written in 8 groups of 2 bytes in hexadecimal numbers separated by colons:

FDDD:F00D:CAFE:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001

Leading zeros of each block can be omitted, the above address can hence be written like this:
FDDD:F00D:CAFE:0:0:0:0:1

We can abbreviate whole blocks of zeros with :: and write:
FDDD:F00D:CAFE::1

This can only be done once in order to void ambiguity:
FF:0:0:0:1:0:0:1 (correct)
FF::1:0:0:1 (correct)
FF:0:0:0:1::1 (correct)
FF::1::1 (ambiguous, wrong)

Ways to assign IPv6 addresses:

• Static - fixed address
• SLAAC - Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (host generates itself)
• DHCPv6 - Dynamic host configuration protocol (assigned by central server)

• GLOBAL - everything (i.e. the whole internet)
• UNIQUE LOCAL - everything in our LAN (behind the internet gateway)
• LINK LOCAL - (will never be routed, valid in one collision domain, i.e. on the same switch)

Notes:

1. Unique local is actually FD00::/8 and is generally not recommended nor needed for small networks
2. Always use the smallest possible scope for communication
3. A host can have multiple addresses in different scopes

Network+Subnet = Prefix

The following address

2003:1000:1000:1600:1234::1 would have the network 2003:1000:1000, the subnet 1600, so together the prefix 2003:1000:1000:1600. If the ISP provider delegated a part of the prefix to me (e.g. 2003:1000:1000:1600/56) then I could use the subnets from 2003:1000:1000:1600 to 2003:1000:1000:16FF for my own purposes (i.e. define 256 subnets in this example)

IPv6 addresses in URIs/URLs

Because IPv6 address notation uses colons to separate hextets, it is necessary to encase the address in square brackets in URIs. For example http://[2a00:1450:4001:82a::2004]. If you want to specify a port, you can do so as normal using a colon: http://[2a00:1450:4001:82a::2004]:80.